Competition Policy and Merger Control in the Single European Market by Sir Leon Brittan QC

Abstract

This slim book provides the text of Sir Leon Brittan's Hersch Lauterpacht Lectures. The first part deals with jurisdictional issues in EC competition law. This is an issue of continuing importance, having regard to the international remit of competition policy, the reverberations of the Wood Pulp judgment of the European Court of Justice, and the continued claims of the USA to exercise jurisdiction under the effects doctrine. Sir Leon is right to make it clear from the outset that jurisdiction is as much about politics as it is about law. Indeed, his view is that competition policy, or at least a system of free competition ‘[has] not gone unnoticed’ in the emerging States of Eastern Europe. He attempts to remove heat from the debate by eschewing the term ‘extra-territoriality’ though many will still consider the issue to be one of juristic hegemony. He is also sensitive to the danger of the open espousal of the effects doctrine as a basis for jurisdiction. His policy is spelled out early in this first lecture: ‘in my view, states may exercise jurisdiction in competition cases with a foreign element only to the extent permitted by international law’ (p. 2).