What are structural competition problems?
Structural competition problems are those which relate to market characteristics that may have an adverse effect on competition or result in inefficient market outcomes, such as higher prices, lower quality, less choice and innovation.
How has the Court of Justice defined an anticompetitive agreement according to Article 101 TFEU?
The main legal change that was made by Article 101 was the prohibition that was placed on anti-competitive agreements, including price fixing. It is provided under Article 101(2) that such agreements would automatically be void for distorting free competition within the internal market.
What is antitrust violation?
Violations of laws designed to protect trade and commerce from abusive practices such as price-fixing, restraints, price discrimination, and monopolization.
Why is it called anti trust?
Antitrust law is the law of competition. Why then is it called “antitrust”? The answer is that these laws were originally established to check the abuses threatened or imposed by the immense “trusts” that emerged in the late 19th Century.
What is Article 101 TFEU and what is it for?
Article 101 TFEU is one of the three pillars of EU competition law. It prohibits restrictive agreements between independent market operators acting either at the same level of the economy (horizontal agreements), often as actual or potential competitors, or at different levels (vertical agreements), mostly as producer and distributor.
What does the term “automatically” mean in the context of TFEU?
The term “automatically” means that no decision is required by EU institutions or national courts to that effect. Concerted practices are not mentioned in Article 101 (2) TFEU because they are informal arrangements and cannot be made void as such.
What is the role of the TFEU Commission?
The role of the Commission is the area is quasi-judicial and subject to appeal to the ECJ. In Courage v. Crehan, the Court ruled that article 101 TFEU has direct horizontal effect and that individuals can invoke article 101 TFEU to claim damages as a result of a breach of said article by another party.
What is Article 101 of the EEA Treaty?
Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union prohibits cartels and other agreements that could disrupt free competition in the European Economic Area’s internal market .