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The document examines challenges and innovations in telecommunications law, focusing on the European context. It highlights the importance of asymmetric regulation and ex ante identification of enterprises with substantial market power. The 2018 European Electronic Communications Code introduces pivotal changes, including co-investment agreements (Art. 76), aiming to foster cost and risk sharing among operators, benefiting smaller enterprises. Such agreements respond to the need for sustainable competition. Art. 72 introduces a new obligation: access to civil engineering infrastructures. This obligation can extend beyond the traditional market if necessary and proportionate to achieve competition and unhindered access objectives. The document emphasizes the regulations' efforts to balance the interests of economic operators and consumers, promoting competition and innovation in the telecommunications sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who should be liable for competition law infringements? While the answer should be, in theory, a simple application of the personal liability principle – the infringer pays – the corporate changes that an infringer may undergo in the years necessary to come to an imputation of the infringement make the matter, in practice, significantly more complex. In this article, we first investigate the core of the antitrust liability theories, all to be traced back to the fundamental concept of undertaking, which constitutes their indispensable theoretical background. Then, we will try to provide an answer to the question, by analyzing, on the basis of the case-law, the multifaceted and colourful applications of antitrust liability theories to M&A transactions involving antitrust infringers. Lastly, we lay out practical suggestions which may be useful for companies to minimize the risks of being left with antitrust liability as a result of corporate transactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the interactions between the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the laws and competition frameworks of Member States. Specifically, the article sets out three different interpretations on the text of articles 1 (5) and (6) of the DMA, which govern interactions between the DMA and national law and competition policy. The article identifies a narrow, broader, and broadest interpretation of the legal interests protected under the DMA. Each interpretation creates different harmonization effects. The article argues that the narrow and broader interpretations allow for significant divergence between national rules, creating the risk of regulatory fragmentation. The broadest interpretation would allow competition authorities and courts to weigh the interests protected in the DMA against national interests and create greater convergence of laws and competition policy in the Digital Single Market. The article also proposes ways forward for the implementation and enforcement of the DMA and national competition laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Self-preferencing" refers to a conduct of a large provider of core platform services which consists in favouring one's own products and services over those offered by competitors on the same platform. Drawing on the experience acquired through its various antitrust investigations into the conducts of Big Tech, the European Commission, in its its "proposal for the Digital Market Act", has put forward the concept of "gatekeeper". If adopted, this regulatory instrument which aims at ensuring fairness and transparency in the EU digital markets, would enable the Commission to qualify as such any large core platform service on the basis of narrowly defined objectives criteria and submit it to a set of prohibitions and obligations. By opting for such an approach, the Commission would be able to switch from an ex-post assessment of a gatekeepers' self-preferencing practices to an ex-ante one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the principle of sincere cooperation in the antitrust enforcement field by analysing its two dimensions: the first one between public and private enforcement, the second one between the different actors of public enforcement. In particular, the article will consider, on the one hand, the cooperation between public enforcement by competition authorities (Commission and NCAs) and private enforcement by national courts envisaged by Regulation 1/2003 and by the Damages Directive and, on the other hand, the cooperation amongst competition authorities provided by Regulation 1/2003 and by the ECN+ Directive, with the aim of demonstrating how both dimensions of the principle of sincere cooperation play an essential role in order to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of antitrust enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

EU competition law appears to interpret fairness in B2B trade relations as "equal opportunities to trade" for market actors. A positive and pragmatic inquiry into the relevant regulations, cases and doctrines support that approach. This contribution suggests a new definition for these practices under EU competition law. Accordingly, any trade practice representing supremacy in bargaining power - usually dominance - and distorting the equal opportunity to trade of one or more trading partners could be conceived as unfair trade practices (UTPs) under EU competition law. Thus, these practices restrict competition according to EU competition law. Indeed, the EU Commission, Parliament and many Member States have emphasized the restrictive effects of UTPs even when practised by non-dominant undertakings. UTPs could include all kinds of trade practices toward trading partners, regardless of the industry and environment in which they occur, whether online or offline. This definition can also relieve competition lawyers from inefficient exploitative/exclusionary abusive conduct divisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the provisions of the regulations governing competition and antitrust law in the context of European jurisdiction. It explores the theoretical argument of the regulation primarily in the European Union by considering its conceptual implications to other relevant jurisdictions. It also examines the meaning of the framework citing that the integration of economic aspects, as well as political and cultural elements constitutes the core of democratic governance. Furthermore, it analysis the regulatory practices developed to protect free elections as well as free speech in economic competition.

The article reports on the move of the European Commission (EC) to replace the dominance standard, which has been into force in 1990, with a recast test. The author cites the aim of the Commission in adopting the new method including the desire to close a possible enforcement gap under the dominance test and most importantly the methodological framework it possesses. Moreover, the historical background of the adoption of the dominance standard is presented as well as the reason as to why it was chosen as opposed to any other competition-based tests that prevailed during the time. Also provided is explanation of the concept dominance.

The article discusses issues related to anticompetitive exchange of information between the retailer and the supplier. It notes that in business discussion, the competition will be affected if the conversation is being transmitted to the competitors. Antitrust law that promotes free competition should include the welfare-reducing effects if the consumer benefit is affected. The direct competitor-to-competitor information exchange law can help to deal properly with "hub-and-spoke-type" arrangements. The British authorities use the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) that renders constructive knowledge approach and the Court of Appeal that involves actual knowledge.

The article focuses on the views of the two countervailing buyer power, the Irish Competition Authority and the High Court about the Kerry/Breeo merger in Europe. It discovers that the two grocery retailers failed to perform enough countervailing buyer power under the Competition Act 2002. It also investigates the other major aspects of the guidelines for retailer merger including the concept of countervailing buyer power, several observations of the merger, findings of the Authority and the High Court as well as the various implications related to merger control.

The article discusses the relevance between consumer and antitrust law in Europe. Authors highlight the positive and negative effects of commercial law in businesses and in the economy. It overviews the implementation of antitrust and commercial law as primary tools of determining consumer failures and explores how behavioral economics may facilitate identifying consumer failures and create efficient remedies for consumer protection. Lastly, it also examine the role of behavioral economics (BE) plays in controlling consumer failures within antitrust and consumer law.

The article offers updates on commercial policy in Bulgaria. It states that the Law on the Protection of Competition (LPC), which aims to harmonise the domestic regulatory framework with Council Nos. 1/2003 and 139/2004, has taken into effect on December 2, 2008. Moreover, the Commission on Protection of Competition (CPC) has been granted by the LPC with investigative powers, impose interim measure and approve and/or impose commitments. Furthermore, the Methodology for Determination of Sanctions approved under the LPC aims to provide the rules for the determination of pecuniary sanctions, fines and periodic penalty payments.

The article offers information on the perspectives of lawyers and economists on the CRA paper, which focuses on the use of selective distribution by luxury goods suppliers in Europe. It states that the goals of vertical restraints is enacted with geographically segmenting the market, raising barriers to entry for competitors and reducing competition between suppliers. It indicates that vertical restraints can be a tool for better exploitation of monopoly power and anti-competitive zeal. It emphasizes that vertical restraints must be enacted in the form of either retail price maintenance or selective distribution agreement to effectively tackle the alleged free-rider problem.