Essential EU Competition Law in Charts
State of the law: 1 January 2011. Addresses the new “Commission Guidelines on horizontal agreements” and all block exemptions renewed up to 1.1.2011.
The idea behind this daily routine “field manual” is for in-house lawyers, compliance professionals, consultants, attorneys, officers in European or national public administration and students to benefit from a comprehensive set of 75 charts illustrating the “core” of EU competition law together with a brief companion text that relates back to the charts. This concept was developed through the combined professional experience of the authors, in both legal practice and in academia.
Visualising law, as the authors are attempting to do in this book by means of charts, gives the reader some idea of what the blueprint of the edifice of EU competition law looks like. Not unlike architecture, the basic concepts seem misleadingly simple but the challenge lies in establishing the correct connections between those concepts. That is what this book seeks to achieve.
First, the charts are intended as a learning tool for practitioners as well as for students endeavouring to study EU competition law or to brush up on their skills in this field. Indeed most people understand and memorise complex or abstract content more easily if they have some form of visual aid at their disposal. Second, these charts are intended as a presentation tool. Whether the task is explaining an issue of EU law to a client, making a presentation before the board of directors of a company or lecturing on EU law in a university, visual tools can be highly useful.
This book is supplemented by a companion website, which comprises a number of exercises as well as a comprehensive set of reference legal texts which are available for download and it also informs readers about updates and corrigenda.
Christa Tobler is a professor at both the Universities of Leiden (the Netherlands) and of Basel (Switzerland), where she teaches EU law. In her research, she places a particular emphasis on the issues of legal equality and discrimination, both in economic and in social law.
Jacques Beglinger is an attorney-at-law and compliance expert and member of the executive committee of the Federation of Industrial and Service Groups in Switzerland SwissHoldings. He received his legal training in Switzerland, France and the United States. His background is in industrial law with a specialisation in international commercial law and including, in particular, the areas of technology, e-business and media.
Wessel Geursen has several years of experience as an attorney-at-law in the competition law department of a major Dutch law firm. He has also lectured competition law at graduate and post-graduate level. At present, he is pursuing research at the VU University Amsterdam (the Netherlands).
This volume is associated with the Meijers series of the Graduate School of Legal Studies of Leiden University, the Netherlands (http://www.law.leiden.edu/research/news/graduate-school-of-legal-studies.html).
This book is a product of the “EUR-Charts – EU Law in Charts” project (www.eur-charts.eu).
The address for the companion website is: http://competition-webcompanion.eur-charts.eu
Contents
Preface
Note to users
Outline table of contents
Table of contents
Table of abbreviations
PART ONE: EU COMPETITION LAW
I. Charts: EU competition law (Arts. 102 – 109 TFEU)
1. Introduction and overview
2. Conduct of undertakings
2.1 Art. 101 TFEU: collusive conduct
2.2 Art. 102 TFEU: abuse of a dominant position
2.3 Enforcement of Arts. 101 and 102 TFEU
2.4 Merger control
2.5 Undertakings with a special position under national law
3. Mixed situations
4. State aid
II. Explanatory text: EU competition law (Arts. 101 – 109 TFEU)
1. Introduction and overview
2. Conduct of undertakings
3. State conduct
4. Exercises and legal analysis [Companion website]
PART TWO: BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT: COMPETITION LAW AS PART OF THE EU LEGAL SYSTEM
I. Charts: competition law as part of the EU legal system
1. From the European Communities to the European Union
2. The place of competition law in today’s EU legal system
3. Adoption of secondary EU competition law
4. General elements of the enforcement of EU law
II. Explanatory text: competition law as part of the EU legal system
1. The development of EU law
2. The place of EU competition law in the EU legal system
3. Enforcement of EU law
Tables
Annex: Legislative materials
Index
Companion website:
(i) information about updates and corrigenda
(ii) selection of important legal reference texts which are available to download
(iii) access to most legal texts referenced in the book via comprehensive link lists
(iv) exercises and suggested solutions
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