In this issue: We welcome Spring with two collections. The first, sponsored by Senior Editor Kyriakos Fountoukakos, focuses on comments by inspired by DG Comp’s Draft Paper on Best Practices in Antitrust Proceedings–how to define due process? Our first two authors compare current practices to those in the United States and Sweden, to which we […]

Marcus Glader, Apr 19, 2010 DG Competition has recently published three draft guidance papers setting out best practices for antitrust proceedings. The aim is to enhance transparency and predictability in the Commission’s proceedings, while ensuring the efficiency of investigations into suspected competition law violations. This article focuses on the Commission’s Best Practices on the conduct […]

Nikolaos Peristerakis, Ingrid Vandenborre, Apr 19, 2010 On March 3, 2010, the European Commission (the “Commission”) completed the public consultation of two “Best Practices” documents on the conduct of antitrust procedures under Articles 101/102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”) and the procedures of Hearing Officers. This article describes the […]

Maureen Ohlhausen, Apr 19, 2010 The Federal Trade Commission’s controversial complaint against Intel Corporation contains much that will keep antitrust experts busy litigating, writing law review articles, and conducting conferences for many years to come. Beyond the fine points of antitrust law, however, the FTC’s action has three important aspects that will likely have equally […]

Bo Vesterdorf, Apr 16, 2010 In this comment, I shall, however, not discuss the above mentioned issues in any more detail but shall deal with another issue which is an important part, indeed the most crucial part, of what due process is all about; the issue of “impartiality and fairness” of the administrative proceedings  which, […]

Malcolm Coate, Joseph Simons, Apr 16, 2010 In our paper Critical Loss vs. Diversion Analysis: Clearing up the Confusion, we tried to bridge the gap between the merger analysts that prefer to begin the market definition exercise with firm level relationships (e.g., the Lerner Index) in conjunction with diversion ratios and those of us that […]

Assaf Eilat, Jith Jayaratne, Janusz Ordover, & Greg Shaffer, Apr 19, 2010 The academic literature on loyalty discounts and exclusive dealing demonstrates that the welfare effects of these practices are ambiguous and that market details determine the direction of the effect. However, in his recent paper entitled How Loyalty Discounts Can Perversely Discourage Discounting, Professor […]

Laura Atlee, Yves Botteman, Apr 16, 2010 We have previously  discussed the Akzo Nobel case,  in which the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”)  clarified the presumption of joint and several liability of parent companies for cartel infringements committed by their wholly-owned subsidiaries. The attribution of liability has major implications for the amount (up to 10 […]