Veronica Hagenfeldt

EC Competition Law Essay - Article 81 Veronica Hagenfeldt

Scholarly Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: Distinction, University of Edinburgh (School of Law), course: EC Competition Law, language: English, comment: However widely Article 81 sets its target as 'agreements' and 'concerted practices' which restrict or distort competition, it remains a prisoner of its core requirements that, in order to be joined, there requires a minimum degree of concertation between undertakings. In vertical agreements in particular there is much unilateral conduct which is anticompetitive yet slips through the net. But Article 81 can accommodate no more without an amendment, and invading the fields properly the preserve of Article 82. , abstract: Despite the ambitious efforts of Article 81 to catch as much anticompetitive conduct as possible through its broadly defined "agreements" and "concerted practices", the title statement is nevertheless correct in stating that genuinely unilateral conduct escapes its scope. By analysing the limitations of Articles 81 and 82 EC, Part 1 of the essay will establish what constitutes genuinely unilateral anticompetitive conduct that slips through the net of both Articles. However, it is not only the direct limitations of Article 81 that render it incapable of catching unilateral conduct, but also the problematic issue regarding the "exact delimitation of the concept of an 'agreement' within the meaning of Art 81(1), and the distinction between such an agreement and unilateral conduct". This paper shares the view expressed in the title statement; Article 81 will require an amendment if it is to catch more unilateral conduct because its current flaws prevent it from achieving more. In order to justify this stance, this paper shall in Part 2 and Part 3 conduct a thorough investigation and evaluation of the legal evolution of how the European Courts and the Commission have determined where the borderline lies between unilateral con