EUROPEAN COMMISSION COMPETITION LAW

European Commission Competition Law

Abstract

European competition law and policy has changed dramatically in recent years. With 25 Member States, the new rules, policies and administrative procedures for the enlarged European Union, the need to ensure that this important legal system, continue to promote competition and protect consumer interests. EC Treaty and Article 82 of the 81 established EU competition law regime. Article 81 (1) prohibits anti-competitive agreements, which the community has a significant effect of trade, and Article 82 prohibits abuse of dominant market position. Article 81 prohibits anti-competitive agreement does not apply if the parties to the agreement can prove that the agreement has an array of pro-competitive benefits outweigh the restrictive effect. The Commission has adopted so-called block exemption regulations, a distributor of R and C license and other agreements set out the circumstances, these agreements generally pro-competitive benefits of the net treatment of the number of safe havens. Recently these laws and regulations block the release of amendments stressed the importance of economic analysis.

European Commission Competition Law

Introduction

Competition law encourages and maintains the competition in the market by imposing conduct related to anti-competition. It has three essential elements. They are prohibition and practice restricting free trade and competition. Second, abusive behaviour is banned to dominate the market. Practices to control the market are banned. Third, mergers and acquisitions are supervised such as joint ventures. A Competition policy is fundamental for any functional market economy. The EU Competition Policy has been, for many years, and will remain, in the future, a corner stone of the EU established policies and is at the core of EU integration. Its impact on businesses and consumers has made it a key policy within the Internal Market, a market of more than half a billion customers, of which Croatia will soon be part. The EU Competition Policy is the backbone of the internal trade within the EU, in other words of the Single Market (Christopher 2007, 1).

The key provisions of the EC competition contained in Articles 81 and 81 of the Treaty of Amsterdam (1) 82 prohibits all agreements between enterprises, decisions by the operators association and coordinated approach may affect trade between Member States and have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the prevailing market. Article 81 (2) provides that such agreement is invalid. Article 81 (3) the provisions of section 81 (1) provides that the agreement might be announced, will help to improve the production or distribution of goods or to promoting technical or economic progress does not apply, so that consumers receive performance fair share, and will not: (Christopher 2007, 1).

• Impose sanctions on the (restrictions and did not achieve the necessary commitment to these goals;

• Cannot afford to eliminate a large portion of the product the possibility of competition in business.

Article 82 prohibits any trade of one or more of the business market dominance abuse of any goods or services, a large part of ...