Side Effects of the Modernisation of the EU Competition Law Modernisation as a Challenge to the Enforcement System of EU Competition Law and EU Law in General

This book offers an investigation of several aspects of the so-called modernization of EU competition law. It brings together a number of articles written between 2005 and 2010, supplemented by an overall analysis and forward looking conclusion. Modernization affected both the enforcement of competition law (the entry into Reg. 1/2003 and decentralization), as well as the substantive application of the law (a more economical approach). Five subjects are dealt with in consequent chapters. They all touch on, sometimes unintended, the important side effects of modernization. The first subject is the level of individual judicial protection offered by the EU courts. The second subject is the interstate trade clause which has acquired a new role after modernization. The third subject is highly relevant in practice, namely the rules on proof in cartel cases. The book then goes on to examine the crucial issue of the objectives of EU competition law and, finally, devotes an article to the challenging question whether there is still a role for the principle of national procedural autonomy and what effectiveness still requires now in terms of further harmonization of national procedures. In a substantial last chapter, the different essays and articles are drawn together and a number of fundamental issues are addressed: the relationship between competition policy and the internal market, the pressures put on the institutional and procedural framework by substantive modernization, the difficult relationship between decentralization, convergence and consistency, and the need for a sufficient system of judicial protection at the EU level.