Chillin'Competition

The Strategic Use of EU Competition Law: Typology and Assessment – Anne-Sophie Come (annesophie.come@gmail.com)

Legal affairs are no longer a “support” function for business entities. Firms increasingly rely on legal rules, proceedings and remedies, as strategic, profit maximising, levers. As a result of this evolution, firms increasingly seek to use (some say “instrumentalize”) the legal system in order to gain competitive advantages over/inflict competitive disadvantages to their rivals. In this context, it is the purpose of this dissertation to review the extent to which firms seek to use, and have used, EU competition law for strategic business reasons alien to the mere eradication of anticompetitive conduct in the market place. To this end, it provides a new reading of a number of well-known cases  decided by the Commission and the Court of Justice.

An Analysis of the Decision of the Commission of 12 may 2009 concerning RFID and Data Protection – Laurie Caucheteux (Laurie.Caucheteux@student.ulg.ac.be)

Green Technology Licenses: Strategies and Practices – Uliana Sylvia (S.Uliana@student.ulg.ac.be)

Comparative Law Systems of Compulsory Licenses: Challenges to Environmental Technology Transfer – Vianney Dessenne

Intellectual Property Protection in the Fashion Industry: Too Pretty to Protect? – Julie De Bruyn

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the protection granted to fashion designs. By first discussing EU law and secondly by comparing the later regulatory framework with the (lack of) protection in the USA, this dissertation seeks to assess whether (or not) fashion designers nowadays are getting the protection they need. This assessment will not only be based on a static analysis of the regulatory framework. It will also draw on concrete empirical information obtained through “field interviews” with designers and professionals of the fashion industry. Should there be a different regulation for “functional clothing” (dry fit, gore tex, etc.) vis à vis “purely esthetical clothing” (e.g. “haute couture”)? And is it true that, as argued by some economists, imitation is actually the biggest incentive for the fashion industry to keep on innovating? These are some of the questions that will be dealt with in this dissertation, with the ultimate goal of reaching a conclusion on the optimal standard of protection (the standard that will satisfy both industry interests and the consumer).

Are Leniency Programs Efficient Detection Instruments? – A Practical Assessment – Romain Douny

Leniency programs are mushrooming. The present dissertation seeks to ascertain, from both a critical and an empirical standpoint, whether those programs are – as alleged by many competition authorities – efficient detection tools to detect competition law infringements. To this end, this dissertation first reviews the leniency programs adopted in the main competition jurisdictions of the EU.  It seeks, in particular, to highlight the upsides and downsides of the various leniency models. This dissertation then provides some empirical data (statistics) on the record of leniency programs: number of leniency applications lodged and outcomes. This analysis will help determine whether certain regulatory features of leniency programs have an empirical impact on their effectiveness. It will also helps us determine whether member states should harmonize their leniency programs and, if so, on which model. Finally, this dissertation concludes in offering critical, philosophical, and prospective reflections leniency program.

State Aid Control and the Financial Crisis – Quentin Metz

The present dissertation analyzes the Commission’s state aid policy in the context of the financial crisis. To this end, the dissertation is divided into four sections. The first section describes the causes of the financial crisis and recalls the essential components of EU State aid control. The second section reviews the different soft law instruments issued by the European Commission during the crisis, i.e. the Banking Communication, the Recapitalisation Communication, the Impaired Assets Communication and the Restructuring Communication. The third section analyses the Commission’s evolving case-law under Article 107(3) c) and b) both before and after September 2008. It focuses on cases such as Crédit Lyonnais; Northern Rock; Banco di Napoli; Fortis; Dexia and Commerzbank. The fourth and final section seeks to compare the main types of rescuing measures adopted by the Member States (in Belgium, France, Germany and the United Kingdom), and tries to ascertain which national measures are preferred by the Commission.