European Competition Law

Abstract

The European Union(EU) is more than a common market and an economic union. Nevertheless, implementing the internal market is still one of the core goals of the EU. It aims to accomplish a highly competitive social market economy, protected against distortion of and interference with competition. The European competition law has gained increasing influence over the past years. One reason is the changed system of enforcement which gives national competition authorities and courts more competences to interpret and enforce European competition law. Another reason in the constant nominal thresholds which separate the scope of European and national competition law. Due to inflation and market concentration they are de-facto decreasing in the course of time. Furthermore, European cartel and merger control has to be observed not only by European companies but by any undertaking worldwide having small but not negligible turnover in the European Union. This has been illustrated by the take-over of the Californian computer producer AST Research by Samsung. Samsung marketed only marginal quantities in the EU and AST had a European market share of only 2.5% at that time. The companies failed to file a merger notification with the Commission. Though the Commission imposed comparatively small fines in that case, companies should be aware of higher fines in the future as the Commission might take the Samsung/AST case as precedent and might presume a greater awareness of European competition law.