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Despite several decades’ worth of explicit directives, green papers, white papers, proposals, and communications from the European Commission, the actual enforcement of competition law across the Member States today is rife with shifting patterns that escape a clearly bounded framework. The underlying cause of this disarray, the authors of this deeply engaged work contend, lies in a host of legal uncertainties scattered around the intersection where private enforcement encounters the mechanisms of decentralized public enforcement – an area where a number of general as well as special questions of EU competition law, even its very goals and principles, rise into prominence.

In this truly authoritative book, eleven well-known European jurists and academics, all experts in competition law, offer in-depth perspectives on these questions and reveal conflicts between EU competition law and enforcement regimes. The subjects on which they focus include the following:

agreements and concerted practices;

the effect on trade criterion;

the quasi legislative role of the Commission;

the need to preserve a central role for the preliminary ruling mechanism;

burden and standard of proof issues;

the role of experts;

the abuse of a dominant position in the form of ‘margin squeeze’;

the lack of transparency characterizing the European Competition Network;

leniency programmes and the circulation of evidence;

calculation of damages and the passing-on defence;

peculiarities of antitrust enforcement in the e-communications sector;

EU legislative competences in the audiovisual sector;

specific features of the pharmaceutical sector; and

recent enforcement in the financial services sector.

A cumulative effect of the analysis and commentary emerges: that the issues of transparency and process of law raised in this book are profoundly related to the crisis of legitimation that the European Union is currently facing. For this reason the book will be of great interest not only to practitioners, academics, jurists, and officials in competition law, but to a wider legal community as well.

Foreward. Preface. Part I General Problems: Goals and Scope of EU Competition LawBernardo Cortese. Chapter 1 The Goals of EU Competition Law Pietro Manzini. Chapter 2Defining Agreements and Concerted Practices Restricting Competition in EU Competition Law Filippo Amato. Chapter 3 The Scope of EU and National Competition Law: The Effect on Interstate Trade Criterion in Practice Igor Taccani. Chapter 4 Piercing the Corporate Veil in EU Competition Law: The Parent Subsidiary Relationship and Antitrust Liability Bernardo Cortese. Part II The Difficult Relationship between Administrative Authorities and the Judiciary in Antitrust Private Enforcement Bernardo Cortese. Chapter 5 Antitrust Enforcement After the Entry into Force of Regulation No. 1/2003: The Interplay between the Commission and the NCAs and the Need for an Enhanced Role of National CourtsFrancesco Munari. Chapter 6 The Effects on Private Enforcement of the Commission’s and National Competition Authorities’ Decisions: An Italian Perspective Dario Ruggiero. Chapter 7 Defining the Role of Courts and Administrative Bodies in Private Enforcement in Europe: United in Diversity? Bernardo Cortese. Part III Private Enforcement and Preliminary Rulings: The Interaction between National Judges and the ECJ Bernardo Cortese. Chapter 8 Preliminary Rulings and Competition Law: Some Reflections for National Judges Daniele P. Domenicucci. Chapter 9 The European Court of Justice and the Shaping of Private Enforcement of EU Antitrust Law through Preliminary Rulings Paolo Iannuccelli. Chapter 10The Court of Justice ‘Antitrust Enforcement Negative Harmonisation Framework’ and the CDC and Pfleiderer Judgments: ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ Lorenzo F. Pace. Part IV Damages Actions in Private Antitrust Enforcement Bernardo Cortese. Chapter 11 Damage Actions in Private Antitrust Enforcement: French Report Alice Pezard. Chapter 12 Damages Actions in Private Antitrust Enforcement: Greek Report Iannis Symplis. Chapter 13 Damages Actions in Private Antitrust Enforcement: Irish Report William McKechnie. Chapter 14Damages Actions in Private Antitrust Enforcement: Italian Report Gabriella Muscolo . Part V Competition, Regulation and Liberalization: Sector-Specific Approaches and Their Significance for Private Enforcement Bernardo Cortese. Chapter 15 Competition Enforcement in the Electronic Communications Sector: The Case of Margin Squeeze Fabio Filpo. Chapter 16 Promoting Information Pluralism through EU Law: Regulation or Competition Law in the Audiovisual Sector? Roberto Mastroianni. Chapter 17 Restrictions on Parallel Trade of Pharmaceutical Products and EU Competition Law Francesco Liberatore. Chapter 18 EU Competition Law and the Financial Services Sector Stefano Nicolin. Annexes