Barry Rodger – författare

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the immediate and likely longer-term consequences of Brexit for the UK’s competition law regime and includes the competition and subsidy control provisions of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. It has been written to be of value to scholars and practitioners of competition law, whilst also providing a useful guide to readers with only limited understanding of competition rules. The book provides a detailed critical discussion of how Brexit impacts on five key aspects of competition policy in the UK: legislation, institutions and cooperation; antitrust rules that prohibit anti-competitive agreements and the abuse of a dominant position; private enforcement, in particular actions for damages; regulation of mergers and acquisitions; and State aid or subsidy control rules.

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the immediate and likely longer-term consequences of Brexit for the UK’s competition law regime and includes the competition and subsidy control provisions of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. It has been written to be of value to scholars and practitioners of competition law, whilst also providing a useful guide to readers with only limited understanding of competition rules. The book provides a detailed critical discussion of how Brexit impacts on five key aspects of competition policy in the UK: legislation, institutions and cooperation; antitrust rules that prohibit anti-competitive agreements and the abuse of a dominant position; private enforcement, in particular actions for damages; regulation of mergers and acquisitions; and State aid or subsidy control rules.

Competition law has traditionally been enforced in Europe via a public administrative authority, primarily the European Commission, but also increasingly by Member State National Competition Authorities. However, public enforcement does not compensate victims of competition law infringements. Private enforcement is central to US antitrust law enforcement, and the availability of class actions underscores the importance of consumer rights and redress. Over the last 20 years there has been considerable debate and developments in the EU to facilitate and encourage private enforcement, in particular in relation to consumer redress.

International Competition Law Series#91

Enforcement of competition law often calls for a complex economic and legal assessment, and the review of those enforcement decisions usually falls to national courts. In this connection, however, European competition law and legal scholarship have offered scant guidance on how judicial review should and does function. This book, the first comprehensive, systematic, and comparative empirical study of judicial review of competition law public enforcement in the EU and the UK, provides a thorough understanding of the practical operation of the role of judicial review in competition enforcement.

 A country-by-country analysis, along with a detailed introduction and an incisive comparative summary, covers all publicly available judicial review judgments – 5,707 in all – of final public enforcement actions in relation to Articles 101 and 102 TFEU and relevant national provisions in the twenty-seven EU Member States and the UK rendered between 1 May 2004 and 30 April 2021. The data presented draws on a rich database built for the purpose of this study by twenty-eight national teams of competition law academics and practitioners.

For each jurisdiction, the analysis focuses on such aspects as the following:

        structure of the national enforcement system;

        number of judgments rendered;

        success rate;

        types of appellants;

        competition rules subject to review;

        grounds of review;

        use of preliminary references;

        appeals involving leniency and/or settlements; and

        role of third parties.

Numerous graphs, figures, and tables support the presentation.

 In the light it sheds on trends in judicial review of competition law enforcement on a comparative basis, and in its data-driven assessment of how the decentralised judicial review of EU competition law meets EU integration aims, this important study will be of inestimable value to competition lawyers, policymakers, and academics in developing a confident understanding of precisely how judicial review in this area operates in each of the EU Member States and the UK. In addition, the book provides a significant contribution not only with respect to EU and national competition laws but also, more broadly, to comparative administrative law scholarship in Europe.