Sindacati, contratti collettivi e antitrust

Rapid technological innovations have challenged the conventional application of antitrust and competition law across the globe. Acknowledging these challenges, this original work analyses the roles of innovation in competition law analysis and reflects on how competition and antitrust law can be refined and tailored to innovation. With chapters from well-established and up-and-coming competition law and economics scholars – from the Academic Society for Competition Law (ASCOLA) – this book reflects on the role innovation has played, and can continue to play, within competition and antitrust law. In addition to uncovering innovation concerns within their analysis, the authors also make important contributions to academic and policy debates on the relationship between these areas of law and other instruments of innovation regulation, such as data protection regulation, intellectual property law, the regulation of big data, platforms and artificial intelligence. Academics in competition and intellectual property law, economics and political science working on data protection or innovation more generally will find this book a useful insight into future challenges for constructing meaningful and effective laws within the area of innovation. Policymakers and practising lawyers will also find the example cases useful, especially for refining and restructuring perception about innovation in competition law.

Chapter 1 - Introduction to Competition Law 1.1 The economic background to competition law 1.2 The function of competition law 1.3 The market 1.4 Competition law and the economic theory of regulation 1.5 Various systems of competition law Literature Chapter 2 - The basic structure of competition law 2.1 Some key concepts in the application of competition law 2.2 The combined system of UK and European competition law 2.3 The scope of application of competition law Chapter 3 - The prohibition of anti-competitive agreements 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The prohibition of cartels 3.3 Voidness 3.4 Block exemptions 3.5 Other exceptions from the prohibition of cartels 3.6 Some important types of anti-competitive agreements Chapter 4 - The prohibition of the abuse of positions of economic power 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The prohibition of the abuse of a position of economic power 4.3 Postscript: the Commission's Discussion Paper on Exclusionary Abuses under Article 82 EC Chapter 5 - Control of concentrations 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The key elements of the EC Merger Regulation 5.3 Merger control in the UK system: the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission Chapter 6 - The Application and Enforcement of Competition Law 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The application of competition law by the courts 6.3 Competition procedure and enforcement under UK law 6.4 Enforcement of EC competition law 6.5 Leniency policy 6.6 Judicial protection in EC competition law 6.7 Division of competence and co-operation between the Commission and the UK authorities (OFT and CC) Chapter 7 - Competition Law and the State 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The rules for public undertakings and undertakings with exclusive or special rights 7.3 The norm of Articles 3(1)(g), 10, 81 and 82 EC 7.4 How to assess conduct in mixed situations? 7.5 EC state aids law: a general introduction Chapter 8 - The international dimensions of competition law 8.1 Introduction 8.2 The geographic scope of application of EC and UK competition law 8.3 International agreements 8.4 Relevant concepts Chapter 9 - Epilogue 9.1. Introduction 9.2. Themes in competition law 9.3. Objectives of EC Competition law and policy 9.4. Does competition law do the job? 9.5. Antitrust procedure 9.6. Fundamental rights 9.7. Block exemptions 9.8. Fostering general Community policies? 9.9. Remedies 9.10. Liberalisation of the closed 9.11. Public service obligations 9.12. Extraterritorial application of EC competition law and international co-operation in the competition law field 9.13. Merger Control 9.14. Article 82 EC 9.15. Articles 3(1)(g) and 10 EC 9.16. Article 86 EC 9.17. Role of national courts 9.18. Harmonisation 9.19. Centralisation & Decentralisation of EC competition law 9.20. Regulation 1/2003/EC 9.21. Competition between Legal Orders 9.22. Targeted sectors and/or issues 9.23. Accession 9.24. Conclusion

Ever-increasing health spending, which, according to future projections, continues to outpace economic growth, will further endanger the financial sustainability of health systems. In a quest to improve the efficacy and efficiency of the health system and thus strengthen its financial sustainability, member states are employing market-based mechanisms to finance, manage, and provide health care. However, the introduction of elements of competition is constrained by the application of EU competition law, which raises significant concerns regarding the applicability of competition law and its limits in the field of health care. Due to the lack of a clear definition in EU legislation, the applicability and scope of competition law are determined on a case-by-case basis, which reveals an inconsistent approach by the European Commission and the CJEU regarding the application of competition law to health care providers and has created legal uncertainty. The aim of this article is to analyze relevant decisions by the commission and the CJEU case law in the pursuit of "boundaries" that may trigger the applicability of competition law with regard to health care providers. Based on the findings of the analysis, the article proposes a set of principles or guidelines for determining whether a health care provider should be considered as an undertaking and, as such, subject to EU competition law.

La directive 2005/29/CE relative aux pratiques commerciales déloyales des entreprises vis-à-vis des consommateurs dans le marché intérieur est un instrument d’harmonisation complète dans ce domaine. En revanche, le droit de la concurrence déloyale et des pratiques commerciales entre entreprises reste essentiellement national. Enfin, il existe des règles de concurrence au niveau européen et des règles de concurrence convergentes aux règles européennes au niveau des États membres. Les rapports entre ces trois branches du droit (pratiques commerciales déloyales des entreprises vis-à-vis des consommateurs, pratiques commerciales déloyales entre entreprises et droit de la concurrence) suscitent de nombreuses interrogations. Il y a un chevauchement entre l’application des règles en matière de pratiques commerciales déloyales des entreprises vis-à-vis des consommateurs et les règles en matière de pratiques commerciales déloyales entre entreprises. L’application des règles en matière de pratiques commerciales déloyales peut mettre en péril l’objectif du droit de la concurrence, à savoir garantir une concurrence effective. Une meilleure intégration de ces trois branches du droit pourrait contribuer à éviter les contradictions qui existent à ce jour. Il est notamment proposé que le droit ces pratiques commerciales déloyales reconnaisse la garantie d’une concurrence effective comme un de ses objectifs et que le droit de la concurrence quant à lui n’autorise pas d’une manière absolue les États membres d’interdire des pratiques restrictives de concurrence sur la base de législations ayant un autre but.

We analyze the welfare and employment effects of different wage bargaining regimes. Within the large firm search model, we show that collective bargaining affects employment via two channels. Collective bargaining exerts opposing effects on job creation and wage setting. Firms have a stronger incentive for strategic employment, while workers benefit from the threat of a strike. We find that the employment increase due to the strategic motive is dominated by the employment decrease due to the increase in workers' threat point. In aggregate equilibrium, employment is ineciently low under collective bargaining. But it is not always true that equilibrium wages exceed those under individual bargaining. If unemployment benefits are sufficiently low, collectively bargained wages are smaller. The theory sheds new light on policies concerned with strategic employment and the relation between replacement rates and the extent of collective wage bargaining.

Managing the Intersection of Utilities Regulation and EC Competition Law

I. INTRODUCTIONThe proper role of private enforcement in antitrust law has long been debated. One of the most significant judicial reforms of antitrust law associated with the Chicago School was the Supreme Court's decision to limit standing to direct purchasers in Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois.1 Although that decision has proven controversial, the Illinois Brick doctrine has endured as a principle of federal antitrust law for nearly 40 years.Whatever the merits of the Illinois Brick decision in 1977, subsequent developments have undermined its rationale. In particular, the Supreme Court's 2013 decision in American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant2 undercuts the fundamental premises of the Illinois Brick doctrine. The Illinois Brick majority assumed that direct purchasers were the most motivated and the best situated to enforce antitrust laws that resulted in supracompetitive prices. But Italian Colors makes it very difficult for direct purchasers to enforce antitrust laws in a wide variety of circumstances, because the decision allows potential antitrust defendants to use arbitration clauses in standard-form contracts to ban antitrust class actions and require individual arbitration of antitrust disputes. The result is to deprive overcharged direct purchasers of the tools antitrust law offers for effective enforcement-class action status, a lengthy statute of limitations, treble damages, and, if successful, attorneys' fees.3 Without effective opportunities for enforcement by direct purchasers, the rationale for excluding indirect purchasers from bringing antitrust claims collapses.Antitrust law is common law and is often based on policy arguments. The decision in Illinois Brick is no exception. The Court based its reasoning on its assessment of the ability of direct purchasers to enforce antitrust laws effectively. After Italian Colors, that is no longer the case. Old doctrines must give way in light of legal developments (including later judicial opinions) that change the underlying environments and undermine the original policy arguments upon which the old common law is based. By eliminating most antitrust enforcement by direct purchasers, Italian Colors has paved the way for reconsideration of Illinois Brick.4II. ILLINOIS BRICK: ITS HOLDING AND RATIONALECourts have long been suspicious of competitors as antitrust plaintiffs,5 in part because competitor interests do not necessarily align well with consumer interests. For example, competitors might object to conduct that benefits consumers, such as aggressive price competition.6 Beginning in the 1970s, courts began creating limits on competitor standing in an effort to tackle that disconnect.7Consumers, by contrast, are, in some sense, the perfect antitrust plaintiffs. They are the intended beneficiaries of the competitive markets that antitrust policy seeks to encourage; consumers are injured by cartels and other anticompetitive conduct, but benefit from aggressive competition on the merits. Accordingly, courts have long permitted purchasers to sue to recover overcharges that result from cartels,8 though some courts have (incorrectly) questioned customers' standing to enforce the antitrust laws.9In Illinois Brick, the plaintiffs were state and local governments who sought recovery for overcharges that resulted from a cartel that fixed the prices of concrete blocks. But the governments did not buy the blocks directly from the defendants. Rather, construction contractors bought the blocks and used them to build buildings, which the governments later bought.10 The governments were indirect purchasers; their injury came from the fact that the contractors, who paid an artificially high price, passed that higher price on to them.11The Supreme Court held that indirect purchasers could not recover the overcharges that direct purchasers passed on to them.12 Illinois Brick was decided on two basic policy considerations. …

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 2 Volume 23 Issue 2 2016 IUR ❐ EDITORIAL Editorial: Trade union rights after the UK’s vote to leave the EU T his edition of IUR looks at the implications of what was, for many, an unexpected development with potentially far-reaching consequences : in June, UK voters voted to leave the European Union, by a margin of 52 to 48 percent in an average turnout of 72.2 percent. Owen Tudor of the British TUC (which campaigned for a Remain vote), but expresses concern : ‘the European Union has played a central role in protecting working people from exploitation , combating discrimination and promoting good employment practices’, while ‘UK governments strongly resisted equal treatment rights for agency workers, working time limits, and rights for workers to receive [workplace information and consultation]. During the referendum, only four trade unions officially called for a vote to leave the EU, while most other unions (including the country’s largest unions) called for a remain vote. Yet, as Alex Gordon points out, ‘analysis of the voting patterns revealed in the referendum result demonstrates a majority of working class voters, particularly in Britain’s former industrial heartlands; the north of England, Midlands and South Wales, voted (and in significantly large numbers) to leave the EU’ Trying to gauge international perspectives on ‘Brexit’, IUR uncovered clear concern at the deteriorating attitude towards Polish workers in the UK being expressed by the Polish trade union centre OPZZ, which has observed that ‘the campaign was won by xenophobia and populism, and as a result of exit from the EU, the situation for the majority of British people will worsen’. Esther Lynch of the ETUC observes that ‘the EU as a whole now faces a very difficult challenge … the anger and disillusionment of working people with the EU is not confined to the UK’, and adds that ‘social rights, in particular […] trade union rights, are not being accorded equal weight and emphasis compared with the protection and promotion of employers’ economic freedoms’. To address this urgent situation , Esther argues that ‘collective bargaining systems have to be restored as a fundamental right and because a pay rise for workers in Europe is central to a fair recovery from the crisis. The adoption of a social progress protocol is urgently required to restore the proper balance between economic freedoms and fundamental social rights in particular trade union rights’. Into this dynamic context, IUR welcomes the timely launch of the Manifesto for Labour Law: towards a comprehensive revision of workers’ rights, produced by the UK’s Institute for Employment Rights (IER). Observing that ‘the UK has ‘a framework of law born out of 19th century conditions, which has bypassed many advances of the 20th century, which ignores today’s economic and workplace realities, and which is not fit for purpose in 21st century Britain’, IER calls for the ‘restoration’ of the principles of collective bargaining ‘to provide a means of workplace democracy , to bring some measure of balance to the otherwise disproportionate power of employers, to redress wage inequality, to prevent the exploitation of migrants, to raise wages, increase demand and reinvigorate the economy, and to fulfil the UK’s binding legal obligations’. As Jon Jeffries reminds us, however, April this year saw the passing into law of the much-criticised Trade Union Act 2016. While parts of the original Bill were stopped (in part due to trade union negotiations linked to the then impending EU referendum) Jon Jeffries examines how the role of the Certification Officer was re-written. Looking at the trade union scene elsewhere; we report on unpopular changes to French labour law and the response of unions and youth movements; on Turkey we assess the trade union rights situation before and in the immediate aftermath of the failed coup attempt; we hear from David Bacon of the appalling treatment meted out to striking teachers in Mexico; report on the shocking sentence handed down to a South Korean trade union leader; and we publish a report back from the Global Labour Institute’s trade union summer school. Daniel Blackburn, Editor Next issue of IUR Articles between 850 and 1,900 words should be sent by email (mail...

State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) directly compete with private companies, including foreign investors. The scope of applicability of competition law towards SOEs constitutes one of the key features of national competition protection regimes. Two approaches (models) can be identified in this area: the equality approach (competition law applied in the same manner towards the public and the private sector; the model is based on the neutrality principle); and the differentiation approach (excluding fully the application of competition law on SOEs). The second model is usually justified by important social and economic goals, mainly by a necessity to provide highquality public services. However, the differentiation model may negatively affect both domestic competition and the investment atmosphere. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries adopted competition laws that generally put SOEs and the public sector in a broader sense out of scrutiny of competition law regime. The paper aims to check what reasons lie behind a rejection of the neutrality principle in GCC’s competition laws, specifically if competition protection regimes are patterned on antitrust laws from liberal economies. By identifying how the differentiation approach to addressees of competition laws is reflected at a legislative or practical level in most GCC’s countries, the article tends to assess the impact of national competition laws on Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in the Gulf region. competition law, Gulf States, neutrality principle, State-owned enterprises, foreign investments, national champions

‘Final reflections’ explains that as the understanding of markets and economic theory evolves, so does the application of competition law. With changing market and socio-political realities, these challenges become apparent. We need to consider the rise of digital markets and the threat of climate change, and assess the effect they have on the enforcement of competition and antitrust laws. What is the right formulation of competition policy? The key to effective competition law enforcement lies not in the pretence of purity or certainty, but in an open and informed debate on the law and economics, and the society to which we aspire.

‘The goals and scope of competition and antitrust laws’ evaluates the goals and scope of competition and antitrust laws. Competition laws seek to protect the competitive process in the marketplace from companies that seek to distort it. By safeguarding free and fair markets, competition laws promote consumer welfare as well as efficiencies in the marketplace. While key competition law principles are similar across the world, competition laws are not internationally uniform, but are instead customized by each jurisdiction. A comparison can be made between US Federal Antitrust Law and the EU competition law. There are also other jurisdictions that apply competition laws, including China, Japan, and South Korea.

This monograph is the definitive work on the application of antitrust and competition law in blockchain, decentralized finance, and virtual asset markets. It covers all aspects of antitrust and competition law, including market definition, market power, abuse of dominance and monopolization, and anticompetitive agreements and restraints of trade. Completely up to date with all recent literature and case law, this monograph is a key companion to academics, practitioners, competition authorities, and anyone with an interest in competition law and policy in the decentralized economy. Both EU competition law and US antitrust law are covered, and the legal analysis is complemented by extensive economics and computer science literature. Keeping in pace with recent industry developments, this monograph not only systematizes extant scholarship but also breaks new ground, introduces new concepts of the decentralized economy, and integrates them in the analytical framework of competition and antitrust law, making it readily usable by academics, practitioners, and regulators.

Discount Policies in US and EU Antitrust Enforcement Models: Protecting Competition, Competitors or Consumer Welfare?

The commercialisation and internationalisation of sporting activities alongside ongoing European integration has put the relationship between the European Union and the sports world under strain. The Bosman case marked the start of an intense debate on an appropriate regulatory framework for this evolving relationship. Whereas the Community judges in previous sport related cases had consistently opted for settling the dispute on the basis of free movement provisions, the Piau and the Meca-Medina & Majcen cases entail the first rulings on the application of EC competition law to sport. This paper tackles the difficulty of separating the economic aspects from the sporting aspects of a sport and the consequences of anti-trust law for sporting associations. Whether the Court of Justice provided satisfactory guidelines to deal with upcoming legal actions and more generally, whether these guidelines on the application of competition law might influence the governance of sport in Europe, is also considered.

Argues for the banning of labor unions from collective bargaining for wages and striking, as well as the extension of the antitrust law to outlaw or regulate companies' abilities to exercise labor market monopsony power. Components of the antitrust exemption and the problems they try to address; Flaws in legal and economic approaches to labor unions; Efficiency defenses of labor unions. (Из Ebsco)