Chillin'Competition

In the past few days both Commissioner Almunia and Cecilio Madero, Deputy Director General for Antitrust, have spoken publicly about sanctions for breaches of EU Competition law (see here and here). Both have praised the current EU enforcement system as well as the changes that have been introduced to improve enforcement practice, namely the settlement procedure.

In his speech, Mr. Almunia also made a very welcome announcement. From now on “the Commission will indicate already in the Statement of Objections itself, the elements for the calculation of the fine such as the value of the cartelised sales – which is a critical factor – but also, for example, an indication of the gravity and issues of recidivism”.  I see this as a great development, and one for which the European Commission must be congratulated.

But there are still a few issues which, in my view, should also be reconsidered by the Commission. Some opinions and suggestions in this regard are developed in an article I´m specially proud of, titled “Fine Arts in Brussels, Punishment and Settlement of Cartel Cases under EC Competition Law”. This article was authored by Luis Ortiz Blanco, Angel Givaja and by myself; it was presented by Luis Ortiz Blanco at a conference in Treviso in May 2008 and later published on the book Antitrust, Between EC Law and National Law.  

Until now this article had never been available online, so we´ve decided to remedy that and make it available to the readers of this blog. As you will see,  the arguments in this article are accompanied by Roman numbers; those numbers refer to paintings which graphically illustrate those ideas.  

Here it is:

Fine Arts in Brussels (text)

Fine Arts In Brussels (pictures)