This chapter provides an overview of competition policy, competition law and its economic context. Section 2 describes the practices that competition laws attempt to control in order to protect the competition process. Section 3 examines the theory of competition and gives an introductory account of why the effective enforcement of competition law is thought to be beneficial. Section 4 considers the goals of competition law. Section 5 introduces two key economic concepts, market definition and market power, that are important to a better understanding of competition policy. The chapter concludes with a table of market share figures that are significant in the application of EU and UK competition law, while reminding the reader that market shares are only ever a proxy for market power and can never be determinative of market power in themselves.
Chapter
1. Competition policy and economics
Chapter
3. Article 101(1)
This chapter discusses Article 101(1) of the Treaty of Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which prohibits agreements, decisions by associations of undertakings, and concerted practices that restrict competition. It begins by explaining the meaning of ‘undertakings’ and ‘associations of undertakings’. It then considers what is meant by the terms ‘agreements’, ‘decisions’, and ‘concerted practices’, as well as what is meant by the phrase ‘have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction, and distortion of competition’. The chapter then deals with the de minimis doctrine, before explaining the requirement of an effect on trade between Member States. The chapter concludes with a checklist of agreements that, for a variety of reasons, normally fall outside Article 101(1).
