European Commission Decisions on Anti-Competitive Behavior

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of all the European Commission´s decisions on antitrust cases between January 1999 and February 2004. We use a unique dataset that contains information not only on the cases that were analyzed by the Commission and for which a decision was finally public, but also on all the cases that were never pursued any further or the ones for which there is no public final decision. We have two goals. First, this data allows us, for the first time in the literature, to determine whether there is any type of bias on the selection process followed by the Commission when deciding which cases to pursue until a final decision is reached. Our results show that the selection of cases is not random and that it is quite efficient. Second, we can contribute to determine whether the criteria that have been shown by the economic literature to play an important role on anti competitive behavior, are also important for the Commission´s decision on antitrust cases. Our results suggest that this is the case.