A Tale of Two Cities: Effects Analysis in Article 102 TFEU Between Competition Process And Market Outcome

Abstract

When writing this article about the ‘form-based’ v. ‘effects-based’ approach in the application of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’), I found myself thinking about the famous novel by Charles Dickens, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. Charles Dickens narrates the events of various characters in London and Paris in the backdrop of the French Revolution. The novel is notably based upon doubles and contrasts, which are apparently irreconcilable. However, the different characters and situations depicted as doubles are also very much interrelated or used by the Author to show inherent likeness or hidden links between themselves. In a way, the ‘form-effects’ dichotomy that characterised much of the debate on the application of Article 102 over the last two decades reproduces a similar dynamic with an apparently irreconcilable contrast that hides something deeper underneath.