The long and winding road towards a unified competition law enforcement model in the EEA (original) (raw)
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EU Competition law has recently incurred main procedural reforms. Their basis must be found in Regulation 1/2003, decentralizing the control on the application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, thus emphasising the role of National Competition Authorities and Courts. This system has proved to be far from complete and perfect, as the first part of this article aims at demonstrating. A new political wave has enabled to strengthen the enforcement of EU Competition Law under two strands: the private and the public enforcement. Directive 2014/104 harmonises parts of the national (civil) procedural law regarding damages actions. Powers and duties of National Courts are its focus. Its main features are recalled within this contribution. The long-awaited Directive 2019/1 aims at further reinforcing the role of NCAs, establishing a very detailed piece of legislation, whose main elements are briefly examined here. Since the two acts have been adopted in a quite short period of time, their coordin...
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The EU model of competition law enforcement has been criticized by many authors ever since antitrust provisions in the EEC Treaty became effective. The fundamental contradiction between the high level of fines threatened (and often imposed) for antitrust violations and the administrative, inquisitorial procedure for investigating antitrust offences and imposing sanctions has principally inspired the critics. The compatibility of the EU model with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the ECHR) was disputed, instigating the EU institutions to take steps to improve the institutional and procedural framework for applying competition rules. This process has not been completed yet. Directive 2019/1 raised additional controversies regarding the compliance of variegated national enforcement models with the rule of law. This article aims to analyze the genesis of the competition enforcement model in the EU, which materialized mainly through the EU secondary legislation and ECJ case law. We evaluate the EU model against the enforcement system imagined by the Ordoliberal school of thought and, secondly, against administrative models existing in two "old" Member States, in which the rule of law has deeply rooted-France and Germany. We conclude by identifying the most cumbersome deficiencies of the EU model and proposing possible solutions for eliminating them.