Critical Evaluation of the Reform of EC Competition Law System made by the Regulation 1/2003
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.main##
Abstract
Competition law in the European Union has a central role to play. Without legal provisions in the EC Treaty aimed to guarantee undistorted competition law it would be impossible to ensure the process of market integration. The present article is devoted to the review of the new regime in the EC competition law system that was established after Regulation 1/2003 came into force on May 1st 2004. This Regulation is often presented as a tool for a modernization of European Community law. It provides new powers for the European Commission in enforcement of the competition law, describes cooperation of the national competition authorities and European Commission and also allows national courts to apply para 3 of Article 81 directly in national court proceedings. One of the main basic novelties brought by this Regulation is decentralization of enforcement of the EC competition law.
Regulation abolished notification and Commission’s monopoly of application over Article 81 para 3. Indeed the issue concerning new competition regime has raised many discussions between the lawyers and scholars. Generally officials from the European Commission who drafted this Regulation submit that it is a really big step towards enforcing competition law.
However, independent scholars raise many critical comments in relation to the Regulation. There is no attempt to claim in this article that Regulation 1/2003 does not bring any modernization, nonetheless this article is concentrated on critical review of the Regulation and on showing of week sides of new competition regime. This article is comprised of three parts. In first part of the article some attention is paid to the analysis of competition regime, which existed for forty years and was created by Regulation 17/62. In the second part of the article legal evaluation of Regulation 1/2003 is given. In this part it is attempted to show main reasons for a changes in competition policy regime and basic features of a new Regulation are described.
It is submitted that this Regulation is subject to criticism because of few reasons: it will be quite hard to ensure harmonious application of EC competition law in the EU under the new regime; the new regime would function better if some changes to the EC treaty have been made; moreover, para 3 of the Article 81 should be more precise and definite in order to be directly applicable according to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. In third part of the article Regulation 1/2003 is evaluated from perspective of competition policy. Lack of information and legal clearness under the new regime are main reasons for stating that this regime in comparison to the previous is not better suited for enforcement of competition law. It is even submitted that this regime might cause serious problems.
Regulation abolished notification and Commission’s monopoly of application over Article 81 para 3. Indeed the issue concerning new competition regime has raised many discussions between the lawyers and scholars. Generally officials from the European Commission who drafted this Regulation submit that it is a really big step towards enforcing competition law.
However, independent scholars raise many critical comments in relation to the Regulation. There is no attempt to claim in this article that Regulation 1/2003 does not bring any modernization, nonetheless this article is concentrated on critical review of the Regulation and on showing of week sides of new competition regime. This article is comprised of three parts. In first part of the article some attention is paid to the analysis of competition regime, which existed for forty years and was created by Regulation 17/62. In the second part of the article legal evaluation of Regulation 1/2003 is given. In this part it is attempted to show main reasons for a changes in competition policy regime and basic features of a new Regulation are described.
It is submitted that this Regulation is subject to criticism because of few reasons: it will be quite hard to ensure harmonious application of EC competition law in the EU under the new regime; the new regime would function better if some changes to the EC treaty have been made; moreover, para 3 of the Article 81 should be more precise and definite in order to be directly applicable according to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice. In third part of the article Regulation 1/2003 is evaluated from perspective of competition policy. Lack of information and legal clearness under the new regime are main reasons for stating that this regime in comparison to the previous is not better suited for enforcement of competition law. It is even submitted that this regime might cause serious problems.
##plugins.themes.bootstrap3.article.details##
Section
Articles
Authors contributing to Jurisprudence agree to publish their articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public (CC BY-NC-ND) License, allowing third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this licence are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to the Association for Learning Technology.
Please see Copyright and Licence Agreement for further details.
Authors retain copyright of their work, with first publication rights granted to the Association for Learning Technology.
Please see Copyright and Licence Agreement for further details.
