European Commission

Public discussion on merger control in the last few years of has put the spotlight on two elements of contemporary merger analysis: market definition and market concentration, of which the former has…

On 13 September, the Commission published its decision of 31 March 2011 in China National Bluestar/Elkem. After DSM/Sinochem/JV (decision of 10 May but published in June), this was the second…

The past decade has seen a flurry of articles published trying to make sense of the degree of control that the EU Courts exercise on complex economic reasoning. By contrast, much less has been…

Naturally, we all want change to be orderly. This is particularly true when something goes wrong and someone official has to come in and sort it out. Take, for instance, the heat stabilisers cartel…

To commemorate his first year in office as Competition Commissioner, Mr. Almunia and José openly discuss current and future competition policy issues.The full interview for World Competition is…

The European Commission's Phase II decision of 17 November 2010 concerning Syngenta's acquisition of Monsanto's sunflower seeds business raises a number of questions. First, it took the European…

Lawyers do funny things to words. Sometimes, of course, they need to create a technical term to cover something that doesn’t exist in ordinary parlance. “Tort” is an obvious example. Yes, you can…

Perception is a problem in competition law. Many consumers and small businesses only understand what the subject might be about when a dispute is local, small-scale, potentially bad tempered and…

In a recent judgment of December 15, 2010, the General Court had an opportunity to discuss the competitive analysis of aftermarkets. At issue in that case were complaints by independent watch…