Isabela Atanasiu - Böcker

The European Competition Law Annual 2001 is the sixth in a series of volumes following the annual workshops on EU Competition Law and Policy held at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University in Florence. The volume reproduces the materials of the roundtable debate that took place at the sixth edition of the Workshop (1-2 June 2001),which examined the conditions for an effective private enforcement of EC antitrust rules. The application of EC antitrust rules in the context of private litigation before national courts and arbitration tribunals is becoming a highly topical subject against the background of the on-going debate about the decentralisation of EC antitrust enforcement.The participants - a group of senior representatives of the Commission, national judges, arbitrators, renowned academics and international legal experts in the field of antitrust - discussed in particular the following aspects: a) the availability and effectiveness of substantive remedies in the enforcement of EC antitrust rules at the EU level in general and in four major EU jurisdictions in particular (England, France, Italy and Germany); b) the procedural issues arising in the enforcement of EC antitrust rules by national courts in four EU jurisdictions (England, France, Italy and Germany) and at the EU level in general; c) the problems arising in the application of Article 81(3) EC by arbitration tribunals. In addition to these issues, the participants also discussed whether the public enforcement of EC antitrust rules could be rendered more efffective by introducing sanctions applicable to the individuals responsible for their violation.

The European Competition Law Annual 2002 is the seventh in a series of volumes following the annual workshops on EU Competition Law and Policy held at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University in Florence. The volume reproduces the materials of the roundtable debate that took place at the seventh Workshop.

The European Competition Law Annual 2004 is ninth in a series of volumes following the annual workshops on EU Competition Law and Policy held at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence. The volume reproduces the materials of the roundtable debate that took place at the ninth edition of the workshop (11-12 June 2004), which examined the relationship between competition law and the regulation of (liberal) professions. The (liberal) professions and the rules governing their functioning have become of interest for EC competition law enforcement since the early nineties, making the object of a series of Commission decisions and judgments of the European courts. The subject has gained in importance in the perspective of the recent decentralisation of EC antitrust enforcement. The regulation of (liberal) professions is also a matter of increasing concern from the perspective of freedom of services in the internal market.The workshop participants - a group of senior representatives of the Commission and the national competition authorities of some Member States, reknown international academics and legal practitioners - discussed the economic, legal and political/institutional issues that arise in the relationship between competition law and the regulation of (liberal) professions.

This is the tenth in a series of volumes based on the annual workshops on EU Competition Law and Policy held at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence. The volume reproduces the materials of the roundtable debate which examined the interaction between competition law and intellectual property law. The workshop participants - a group of senior representatives of the Commission and the national competition authorities of some EC Member States, reknowned international academics and legal practitioners - discussed the economic and legal issues that arise in this particular area of application of the EC competition rules, under the following headings: 1) whether the characteristics of intellectual property products/markets justify special treatment under the competition rules; 2) a critical assessment of the Block Exemption Regulation and corresponding Guidelines recently adopted in this area of EC competition law enforcement; 3) the specific enforcement issues that arise in relation to patent pools and collecting societies; and 4) specific problems related to IP in the domains of merger control and application of Article 82 EC.