Concerted Practices Research Articles

Choirmaster activity of Anatolii Avdiievsky: the combination of the folk and the academic singing styles

The aim of the study is to consider the process of the establishment specificity of the choirmaster work of Anatolii Avdievski with the H. H. Veryovka National Academic Ukrainian Folk Choir in the context of combining folk and academic singing styles.The object of the research is the choirmaster work of Anatolii Avdievski. The subject is to reveal the formation stage within conjunction two different styles of choral singing that which were characteristic for choral style in the choirmaster activity of Anatolii Avdievski for many years.Methodology of the study applies the historical review of the key stages of the choirmaster work of famous conductor and prominent musical figure in Ukrainian choral performance. The functioning of the H. H. Veryovka National Academic Ukrainian Folk Choir under the leadership of Anatolii Avdievski has been considered from the point of view of performance enhance of this collective and its ability to combine folk and academic repertoire.Relevance of the study. Folk singing has long traditions in Ukraine. This genre has always been the basic component of the spirituality and mentality of the Ukrainian people. There are many choirs and ensembles of songs and dance that perform and popularize folklore during their concert practice. One of the leading and the most popular choirs in Ukraine is the H. H. Veryovka National Academic Ukrainian Choir. This collective has performed its repertoire of more than one thousand traditional folk songs all over the world. But, at the same time, the choir could also perform various adaptations of folk music written by contemporary professional composers and even academic choral repertoire. These features entailed an interesting discussion that took place in the music environment in the last decades of the twentieth century. In that case, the author considers important works published by M. Krechko, which raised the issues of the possibilities and expediency of the new repertoire policy of Anatolii Avdievski that was put into performing practice of the H. H. Veryovka National Academic Ukrainian Choir.Findings and conclusions. Being at the head of the H. H. Veryovka National Academic Ukrainian Choir, Anatolii Avdievski relied on the experience of its outstanding predecessors, especially ‒ H. Veryovka and E. Skrypchynska. Anotolii Avdievski, as successor of these prominent artists, focused on the diversity of collective repertoire and replenished choir members with academic female voices. As a result, those creative innovations, formed under the influence of Anatolii Avdievski, were significant and contributed to achieve unique originality and versatile performing capability of the H. H. Veryovka National Academic Ukrainian Choir named.

Тенденции развития музыкального направления classical crossover в творчестве инструментального дуэта «Игудесман и Джу»

The performance artistry of the instrumental duo “Igudesman & Joo,” which has obtained popularity in 2004 after their presentation of the show “A Little Nightmare Music,” has demonstrated a new stage of development of the classical crossover trend in violin performance. Through the prism of the comic element the composers’ style of the past (Bach, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, etc.) become correlated with the experience of contemporary concert practice (“Bach vs Vanessa Mae”) with the realities of modern life – the necessity of bringing in the “code and password” for the opportunity for playing on the musical instrument, the recreation of the situation of a swift reconnoitering “surfing” on television and radio channels, internet websites, and the rubrics of discs (the show “Being Gidon Kremer”). Actively used by mass culture, the hedonism of laughter by means of diverse stylistic techniques of creation of comic effects (unusual juxtapositions in “Mozart Bond,” transformation of academic themes, etc.) obtains an intellectual foundation. The cognition of the concept-oriented field of compositions saturated with comical images alters the means of perception of musical compositions based not as much on mechanisms of feeling and empathy as on reflection. Understanding the stylistically heterogeneous artistic image (collage technique, comic devices) presumes an orientation on a broad musical and historical perspective on the part of the listener. Keywords: contemporary violin performance, classical crossover, the instrumental duo “Igudesman & Joo.”

Art rock concert practice and its projection into the XXI<sup>st</sup> century

Relevance of the study. In the space of modern music, a special cluster is formed by the classics of art rock – musical works that were created during the end of the 1960s – the first half of the 1970s and haven’t yet lost their artistic value, force of conviction and power of influence over their audience. Though mostly reproduced as records nowadays, they are still often used at concerts forming a special stream of modern music life. A come-back of the highest achievements of art rock being at the interface between the entertaining and the academic music and bearing the high artistic and intellectual value into the concert practice requires careful attention from researchers.The main objective of the study is to describe the specifics of concert practice of art rock at runtime, from the classic period till the last twenty years’ period.Methodology. The main in the study is the comparative method that allows us to clarify the similarities and the differences in presentation of art rock musical works at the different stages of the musical cultural process.Results and conclusions. The study allowed us to describe some parameters of the process of change of art rock concert practice. The classic period of art rock that is from the second half of the 1960s till the mid-1970s was marked by substantial difficulties in an arrangement of shows including those related to incompleteness of instruments. As a result, the depth and scale of the author's intention contradicted the real possibilities of its implementation, which stimulated the search for successful problem solving. Closer to the 1980s, art rock divides into layers: some bands go out of existence or make a long break in their activities, the others slightly change their style focus. Not all but just a few art rock representatives have stayed true to themselves. At the beginning of the XXIst century, with a rising tide of interest towards the classics of art rock on a concert stage, for a number of reasons it leaks away its authenticity as an artistic phenomenon in which the composer and the singer are impersonated all in one.

Music as a component of the processes of professionalization of the cultural and artistic life of Drohobych region at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries

The purpose of this intelligence is to analyze the musical and artistic components of cultural and educational processes in the life of the Ukrainian community of Drohobychyna of the interwar period, which prepare the ground for the further professionalization of professional music education. The methodology of the study is to use retrospective and structural-system methods in the analysis of sources; historical - in the study of the peculiarities of the development of the traditions of performing and the formation of the principles of musical creativity in the context of artistic and cultural life of the region. Scientific novelty consists in the fact that for the first time the author has isolated and comprehensively considered the musical components of cultural and educational activity of Ukrainian public associations of Drohobychnia of the studied period. The consistent activity of public, sports, artistic, cultural, educational and singing associations and societies of Drogobych, with numerous amateur groups, resulted in their high creative activity, a strong social request for musical concert activity in the context of national and social events, awareness of the need for its centralization, and professionalism at the level of cells in many towns and villages of the region. The multifaceted study of the aforementioned aspects enables us to identify the sources of professionalization of the concert practice forms relevant for the region relevant to their needs in the professional training of practicing musicians.

How Horizontal Shareholding Harms Our Economy - And Why Antitrust Law Can Fix It

Empirical evidence that horizontal shareholding has created anticompetitive effects in airline and banking markets have produced calls for antitrust enforcement. In response, others have critiqued the airline and banking studies and argued that antitrust law cannot tackle any anticompetitive effects from horizontal shareholding. I show that new economic proofs and empirical evidence, ranging far beyond the airline and banking studies, show that horizontal shareholding in concentrated markets often has anticompetitive effects. I also provide new analysis demonstrating that critiques of the airline and banking market-level studies either conflict with the evidence or, when taken into account, increase the estimated adverse price effects from horizontal shareholding. Finally, I provide new legal theories for tackling the problem of horizontal shareholding. I show that when horizontal shareholding has anticompetitive effects, it is illegal not only under Clayton Act §7, but also under Sherman Act §1. In fact, the historic trusts that were the core target of antitrust law were horizontal shareholders. I further show that anticompetitive horizontal shareholding also constitutes an illegal agreement or concerted practice under EU Treaty Article 101, as well as an abuse of collective dominance under Article 102. I conclude by showing that horizontal shareholding not only lessens the market concentration that traditional merger law can tolerate, but also means that what otherwise seem like non-horizontal mergers should often be treated as horizontal. Those implications for traditional merger analysis become even stronger if we fail to tackle horizontal shareholding directly.

История становления и развития Саратовского отделения Императорского Русского музыкального общества

The article is devoted to the functioning of the section of the Imperial Russian Musical Society (IRMS) in the Saratov Gubernia in the second half of the 19th century. On the basis of study of documental materials preserved in the funds of the State Archive of the Saratov Region, as well as the regional literature the history of the formation and development of the art of professional music in Saratov. The author characterizes the general cultural processes typical for the beginning stage of musical education and enlightenment in Russia. Analysis is made of the premises for the development of musical culture in Saratov (the creation of theaters, symphony and chamber orchestras, closed concerts, etc.), which are conditioned by the cultural traditions established in the aristocratic milieu. The traditions of household music-making and the practice of concert performance were actively developed during the period of creation of the Saratov Section of the IRMS. The gubernias witness the formation of the foundations of professional musical education (Musical Classes – the Musical College – the Saratov Conservatory); concert practice acquires a systematic character; the repertoire of performed musical compositions expands and enriches substantially. The significance is shown of the important cultural public figures of the Saratov gubernia actively aiding the establishment of the Saratov Section of the IRMS and, consequently, the development and flourishing of musical culture in the region and in the country, in general (Mikhail Galkin-Vraskoy, Yuri Obolensky, Nikolai Bakhmetev). Keywords: The Saratov Section of the Imperial Russian Musical Society, provincial musical culture, Mikhail Galkin-Vraskoy, Nikolai Bakhmetev.

Antitrust by Design – The Prohibition of Anti-Competitive Coordination and the Consensus Mechanism of the Blockchain

Is the blockchain technology with its technical coordination mechanisms also posing new challenges to antitrust dogma? Are conventional principles transferable to platforms or do we need new approaches? This paper examines the applicability of the prohibition of concerted practices to blockchain issues and which requirements arise for a compliance-conscious design of new technologies.

The genre of the piano miniature in the creative work of M. Moszkowski

The genre of the piano miniature in the creative work of M. Moszkowski

Victor Stepurkо’s choral heritage and its functioning in the contemporary performing space

The aim of the study is to consider the concert performance of choral works by V. Stepurko, whose creativity is one of the leading branches in the development of contemporary Ukrainian choral music.The object of the research is the choral music of Victor Stepurko. The subject is a concert practice of Ukrainian choirs that perform composer’s music.Research methodology. The following methods are used in the article: historical-biographical – it is aimed to study the composer’s choral heritage; system-complex, through which the components of choral composition are considered. The analysis of performances is aimed to reveal the peculiarities the artist’s oeuvres by choir collectives. With the help of musicological method some genre features of performed works are revealed and their character in concert programs by choral groups is determined.Relevance of the study. The spiritual choral work of V. Stepurko is described on the example of performing practice of various choir collectives; the author has revealed problems of concert performance of composer’s music. The concert performance of his works (“Dyvo-Dyvneye”, diptych “Supramental dream”) was analyzed for the first time.The author carried out a brief genre analysis of choral works of the composer, especially the spiritual choral music, leading in his work. Being basic in the genres of classical music, V. Stepurko boldly experiments and modernizes them, embodying sacredness and spirituality, preaching through the voices of instruments and singers the depth and grandeur of God’s Word. The works of the composer emotionally affect the listener, his music is easy to perceive as a result of appealing totraditional intonational sources, folk-ephemeral structures, and complex – thanks to deep intellectual decoding, it is verified and balanced with the use of formal means. The author considers the characteristic feature of his vocal forms and their correspondence to poetic structures, the logic of poetic syntactic norms. He demonstrates the professional technique of writing in a clear musical form, which makes it possible to know his soul, to plunge into his musical world.The author raises the issues of the possibility to perform in concert secular activities the religious themes and genres. The peculiarities of the creation of some works by V. Stepurko (“Dyvo- Dyvneye”, 1996; diptych “Supramental Dream”, 1997) are highlighted in the article.The performance of V. Stepurko’s music by different groups is characterized: in particular, the choir ensemble from Makarov “Holy-circle”, created by the composer himself in 1992. It was after the execution by this collective such works as “Litany of Supplication”, “Believe” and “Hear the Lord”, the gradual increase of the composer’s popularity began.The significance of V. Stepurko’s music in festivals – “Musical premiere of the season” and “Golden-domed Kiev”– has been highlighted.V. Stepurko’s music sounds not only in Ukraine but also abroad. The Kyiv Chamber Choir performed one of the early works of V. Stepurko – “Thanks to the Lord”, which was written for a choir with a saxophone, it has been performed in Denmark at the festival “Copenhagen – European Capital of Culture’96”, in Vatican City (2000), in the USA (2002) in the famous Carnegie Holl. Poltava chamber choir “Gilea” under the direction of Pavel Lymansky in 2000 at the competition in Italy performed the works “Litany of Supplication” and “Lord Have mercy”, having won the title of laureate of the second prize and the first place in the nomination “For the best performance of spiritual music”.Thanks to the choir “Kyiv”, choral works by Ukrainian composers, including works by V. Stepurko, have always sounded in a broad cultural context. Thus, in 1996, his music at the Kyiv Music Fest Festival was performed alongside the works of prominent foreign composers such as J. Tavener, A. Onegger, R. Tvardovsky, as well as other contemporary Ukrainian authors – Yu. Alzhnev, M. Shukh, C. Lunyov, L. Dychko.Fateful for the creative cooperation of V. Stepurko with the choir “Kyiv” was 1997, when at the festival “Golden-domed Kiev” this collective performed the entire written choir’s works of the composer at that time. He himself called this concert “his second birth”.Findings and conclusions. Today Victor Stepurko’s works can be heard at concerts, festivals, assemblies and other musical events. His music sounds being performed by various choir: chamber choir “Kyiv”, its artistic director M. Gobdych has released several recordings with works by V. Stepurko, they are called “Ukrainian Christmas”, “Christmas with chamber choir “Kyiv”, “Monologues of the ages”; Chamber Choir “Khreshchatyk” (artistic director P. Strutz), choir of the National Television and Radio Company (artistic director Yu. Tkach), chamber choir of the R. M. Glier Institute of Music (artistic director Z. Thomson) and many other collectives often perform the works of the composer. V. Stepurko’s choral work is increasingly attracting the attention of researchers. The issues of its concert performance are equally relevant and interesting.

The Concert Performance as the Way of Vocal Training of the Student-Actor

The purpose of this article is to highlight the value of a concert performance as an important modus of vocal training of the student-actor.Research methodology. General scientific methods are used in this article: cognitive, analytical, psychological and comparative methods; special attention is paid to the music and psychological methods.Results. Mastering student-actors art of singing is based on the general level of their endowments in the music and artistic sector. The public performance as one of the types of vocal training contains rather high requirements to the performer, especially in the psychological aspect. At the same time the successful scenic performance provides considerable rise, first of all, in the art performing professional area. Forming the correct singing mindset, the preservation of a state «vocal and creative tranquility» have a crucial role in the setting of scenic nervousness, during the concert performance. Against the backdrop of a scenic stage the singer has to show the abilities concerning overcoming enormous nervousness. The basic in the solution for this problem is the following: systematic training and improvement of the vocal and artistic equipment of the student; a detailed preliminary work on the subject matter of the vocal work; the concentration on a music artistic image; good training of singing of the vocal work; first-hand practical experience of concert performances acquired by the student. During the concert performance the vocal skills acquired by the student and music artistry of the performance of works are shown, on the one hand; on the other hand — the experience of public music and artistic activities is acquired. Thus, the concert performance as a component of vocal training of students-actors, first, is an essential key for the successful mastering of vocal and performing skills, secondly, it provides a practical experience of a public vocal performance to future experts of theatre sector that considerably expands the possibilities of professional realization for the students.Novelty. The paper is the first attempt for the issue of using a concert performance as a way of vocal training of the student-actor; the most productive ways of overcoming onstage nervousness of the vocalist at the singing concert practice of the actor are highlighted.The practical significance. The article contains the information which is useful to Ukrainian vocal teachers concerning the development of vocal and scenic skills of students-actors in higher educational institutions.

The Facticity of Practices

The paper sketches out the philosophical project for a hermeneutic theory of social practices. The theory gains its interpretive character by modeling the relations between the subjectivity involved in collective agency and the trans-subjectivity of concerted practices in terms of hermeneutic circularity. The main task of outlining such a theory is the overcoming of a dominant paradigm that consists in decomposing all assemblages of practices into manifolds of discrete elements determined by human agency. The strategy of overcoming this paradigm paves the way for working out a kind of conceptualizing the hermeneutic circularity which enables the autonomy of social practices. The paper argues that this conceptualization helps one to find a way out of the depressing dilemma between agency and structure.Actions and activities – as they are situated in and entangled with interrelated practices – neither causally determine nor impose norms on the ways in which practices are interrelated in their performances.An autonomous ensemble of social practices projects its being upon a horizon of possibilities which agents choose in accordance with their desires, plans, intentions, projects, moods, ambitions, presuppositions, prejudices, background and tacit knowledge. In the hermeneutic theory of practices, there is an important caesura that takes place in the passage from what human agency strongly determines to the authenticity manifested by the modes of being-in-concerted-social-practices.

The Application of EU Competition Law to the Sharing Economy

This paper addresses the impacts of European competition law on the sharing economy and algorithmic pricing. It focuses on the specific features of the relationship between platforms and service providers and provides guidance on the question of when a platform and its peers form a single economic entity under competition law. In the backdrop of recent European Court of Justice judgment addressing the use of pricing measures by platforms, the article also discusses the application of competition law to agreements and concerted practices in the sharing economy.

New Evidence, Proofs, and Legal Theories on Horizontal Shareholding

This Article shows that new economic proofs and empirical evidence provide powerful confirmation that, even when horizontal shareholders individually have minority stakes, horizontal shareholding in concentrated markets often has anticompetitive effects. The new economic proofs show that, without any need for coordination or communication, horizontal shareholding will cause corporate managers to lessen competition to the extent they care about their vote share or re-election odds and will cause executive compensation to be based less on firm performance and more on industry performance. The new empirical evidence consists of cross-industry studies which confirm that, just as the proofs predict, increased horizontal shareholding increases the distortion of executive compensation and the gap between corporate profits and investment. I also provide new analysis demonstrating that critiques of earlier empirical studies showing adverse price effects for airlines and banking are generally invalid and that addressing the valid subset of those critiques actually increases the estimated price effects. I further demonstrate that the various excuses for delaying enforcement action are meritless. Finally, I provide new legal theories for tackling the problem of horizontal shareholding. I show that when horizontal shareholding has anticompetitive effects, it is illegal not only under Clayton Act §7, but also under Sherman Act §1. In fact, the historic trusts that were the core target of antitrust law were horizontal shareholders. I further show that anticompetitive horizontal shareholding also constitutes an illegal agreement or concerted practice under EU Treaty Article 101, as well as an abuse of collective dominance under Article 102.

Dress in Choral Evensongs in the Dutch Context – Appropriation and Transformation of Religiosity in the Netherlands

This article studies the appropriation of Anglican choral evensong, and more specifically, dress at choral evensong, in the Netherlands outside the context of the Anglican Church to gain more insight into religiosity in the Netherlands. The authors explore the dress worn at choral evensong in the Netherlands and the meanings participants attribute to it. The concepts of denotational and connotational meanings are used as an analytical tool. In analysing their interviews, the authors came across three categories of meaning and function participants attribute to dress at choral evensong. The first category was the reference to ‘England as a model’. By wearing Anglican dress, choirs indicate they belong to the high-quality sound group of English cathedral choirs. At the same time, by changing the Anglican ‘dress code’, choirs emphasise their unicity and individuality, independent of church traditions. The second category was the marking of identity: choirs copy the dress from the English tradition, but add some elements to mark their own identity. Besides this marking of identity, aspects of unicity, uniformity, group identity, and gender-marking also play a part. The third category was metamorphosis and transcendence. Choir members refer to unarticulated transcendental experiences by wearing ritual liturgical dress. On the one hand the authors noted a ‘cathedralisation’ or ‘ceremonialisation’ of the singers’ dress, and on the other a de-institutionalisation, for example, in the dress of the minister, if present. The article’s main conclusion is that the fieldwork data reveal that dress at choral evensong in the Netherlands points to changing religiosity at two different levels. First, the authors observe a transformation in the way religion is expressed or ritualised in Reformed Protestant churches in the Netherlands. The popularity of evensong suggests a longing for other forms of worship, with a focus on ceremonies and Anglican-like vesture for the singers. Second, they observe a mix of concert practices and Anglican-like rituals, which the interviewees in our research refer to as a new form of religiosity. In both practices the traditional dress of the Anglican Church is used, whether copied exactly or adapted. A new phenomenon may be observed: choirs wear Anglican-like vesture decoupled from the Anglican Church as they are longing for transcendental experiences which they find in the musical-ritual form and high musical quality of choral evensong.

Nullity Under Art. 101(2) TFEU

The paper discusses the characteristics of the Article 101(2) TFEU nullity compared to the concepts of nullity in civil law in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany as well as to the concept of non-bindingness in EU consumer law. The Article 101(2) TFEU nullity is an autonomous EU private law sanction. It applies to agreements and decisions infringing Article 101(1) TFEU and not satisfying the requirements of Article 101(3) TFEU. In the case of concerted practices, the act of concertation is not a legal act so there is no need to declare it void. The validity of any legal acts concluded between one of the concerting undertakings and one or more third parties is not a matter of EU law, but of national law. The nullity is automatic; this means that it applies ex lege, no prior court decision being required. The extent to which the Article 101(2) nullity may be invoked by national courts ex officio is disputed in legal scholarship. It seems to follow from the case law of the Court of Justice that such an obligation does exist, except where examination of the issue of breach of Article 101 would oblige them to abandon the passive role assigned to them by going beyond the ambit of the dispute defined by the parties themselves and relying on facts and circumstances other than those on which the party with an interest in the application of those provisions bases his claim. In particular, the duty of national courts to apply Article 101(2) ex officio does not seem to interfere with the rules of Article 2 Regulation 1/2003 regarding the burden of proof. The absolute character of the nullity means that the null agreement or decision has no effects between the parties or regarding third parties. Under EU law as opposed to Belgian and French law, the duty to apply Article 101(2) ex officio is rather related to the automatic character of the nullity than to the absolute character of the nullity. The CJEU has recognized that the Article 101(2) nullity may have retroactive effects. This does not mean however that nullity always implies that the act is deemed never to have existed. The act only becomes null and void as of the moment it infringes Article 101(1) TFEU and does not satisfy the requirements of Article 101(3) TFEU. The question whether an act that at one point was null for this reason can revive later on, when it no longer infringes Article 101(1) TFEU or satisfies the requirements of Article 101(3) TFEU, is disputed. It is standing case law of the CJEU that the automatic nullity provided for in Article 101(2) TFEU affects a contract in its entirety only if the clauses which are incompatible with Article 101(1) TFEU are not severable from the contract itself. Otherwise, the consequences of the nullity, in respect of all the other parts of the contract, are not a matter for Community law. The CJEU has not laid down a criterion for severability itself. In case law and legal scholarship the dominant opinion seems to consider that severability is to be determined according to national rules. German scholars however regard the issue of severability as an issue of EU law. Only when the anticompetitive clause is severable from the remainder of the agreement they use §139 to determine whether the nullity is to be extended to the remainder of the contract. National legal systems generally accept the validity of severance clauses, although in Germany they only lead to a reversion of the burden of proof under §139 BGB. According to the Court of Justice it is up to the national law to determine whether the parties may amend their contract in order to prevent it from being void, for example by replacing the void clause by one that is exempted under a block exemption regulation. The Court of Justice did not make an explicit statement about the power of national courts to amend an anticompetitive agreement. In my opinion, chances are significant that the Court would also leave this up to the national legal systems. Currently, Dutch law prohibits such judicial intervention. In Belgium, judicial conversion has long been prohibited, but recently the Belgian Supreme court accepted it, albeit not in a competition law related case. German case law and legal scholarship is divided about judicial conversion, but accepts the application of concrete modification clauses. Although there are certain similarities between the nullity under Article 101(2) TFEU and the concept of non-bindingness under the UCTD, the Article 101(2) nullity and the UCTD’s non-bindingness are two distinct concepts which derive their characteristics from their own distinct purposes: the protection of free competition in the case of Article 101(2) and consumer protection in the case of the UCTD.

The Burden of Proof in the Case of Concerted Practices

The article addresses the issue of proving concerted practices in litigation, given the difference from other anticompetitive acts, in the case of concerted practices the parties do not enter into contracts or agreements which facilitate evidence. Proof of this type of action is aimed at proving its constituent elements: the contact, the meeting of minds and causality. Proving each element implies difficulty starting with the contact between the accused parties, by direct or indirect means of communication and the contact should imply communicating information able to influence the behavior of an entity. Based on this information, the receiver adjusts its behavior to avoid competition risks, while the transmitter issues the information with the purpose of obtaining said result, thus creating meeting of minds.However, the simple proof of communication of information and adapting behavior does not automatically lead to frame the deed as anticompetitive and to sanction accordingly, but it needs to have either a determined anti-competitive object or an effect that leads to the distortion of competition. In this context, it should be noted that be anti-competitive acts may exist but will not be sanctioned in the event of bringing equitable economic benefits by improving the production or distribution of goods or to promoting technical or economic progress.The paper focuses on the accusers` burden to prove the allegations and specifically, at easing the burden of proof by introducing a set of assumptions as effect to proving related facts.

The Meaning of Restriction of Competition Under the Monopolistic Agreements Provisions of the PRC Anti-Monopoly Law

International attention on the People's Republic of China PRC Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) has mostly focused on merger control and abuse of dominance. Enforcement against restrictive agreements and concerted practice seems to have been overlooked so far. This article examines how the Chinese courts and enforcement authorities have analysed restrictive agreements. Specifically, it focuses on how the courts and the authorities have applied the concept of restriction of competition in monopolistic agreement cases. With respect to horizontal cases, one largely unanswered question is whether anticompetitive effects need to be proved even in cartel cases or a proof of the mere existence of the agreement suffices. With respect to vertical cases, there remains much confusion as to the appropriate analytical framework for resale price maintenance (RPM), the per se rule or the Rule of Reason, and whether Article 14 of the AML applies to agreements beyond RPM. This article attempts to shed light on these important questions.

Beyond the Provisional Nature: Towards a Radial Concept of Practice

Practice is one of the key concepts of our time. During the last 30 years, the Practice-Based Studies have spread all over the world. The “rediscovery” of practice has inspired many reflections and empirical researches, contributing to the recent development of the organizational and management studies. This article aims, on the one hand, to reconstruct the debate around the concept of practice and, on the other hand, discuss its meaning, as defined within the PBS. In this paper, it will be argued that practice should be conceived as a “radial concept”. This idea, coming from the political science, is the key to explore new universes of meaning and to read and compare the practitioners' activities, the functioning of organizations and the collective learning processes. The paper will introduce the phenomenon of the so-called Observatories of Civil Justice. These interprofessional communities represent a unique window on the Italian judicial system. This case study enables to critically analyse the concept of practice and to highlight its subtypes: experimental practice, solipsistic practice, diffused practice, concerted practice, fixed practice, institutionalized practice.

WILL TRADESMAN COLLECTIVE WAGE AGREEMENT BE EXEMPTED FROM THE HONG KONG COMPETITION ORDINANCE?

Tradesman Collective Wage Agreement (TCWA) has been used for construction tradesmen for many years. This would ensure the daily wage for qualified tradesmen will not fall below the agreed level. On 14th December 2015, the Hong Kong first ever Competition Ordinance (HKCO) came into effect. Under the First Conduct Rule (Section 6 of the HKCO), an undertaking must not (a) make or give effect to an agreement; (b) engage in a concerted practice; or (c) as a member of an association of undertakings, make or give effect to a decision of the association, if the object or effect of the agreement, concerted practice or decision is to prevent, restrict or distort competition in Hong Kong. Moreover, Section 15 of HKCO allows exemption for agreements that fulfil certain criteria such as economic efficiency and public policy. This study finds that TCWA will likely violate the First Conduct Rule due to its price fixing effect. Moreover, TCWA can apply for block exemption under Section 15 of the HKCO on the ground of engendering economic benefits. Reference is also made to the first application for exemption under the HKCO to illustrate the key arguments.

Public Distancing and Liability in Cartel Cases: Does Distance Lend Enchantment?

Although often mentioned in Court cases, the “public distancing requirement” has so far never been accepted as a defense. The key function of this requirement is to rebut the so-called Anic presumption, according to which an undertaking that has attended (even passively) an anticompetitive meeting is deemed to have participated in a “concerted practice” within the meaning of Article 101 TFEU. The key function of the “public distancing requirement” is, therefore, to rebut a presumption of liability. From this point of view, the public distancing requirement performs a central role, in that it helps resolve the inherent tension between the “Anic presumption” and the presumption of innocence. With that role in mind, this article discusses the scope, stringency and judicial review of the public distancing requirement in light of the most recent case law of the EU courts.