Dr Peter Whelan publishes his latest book on EU competition law
Along with an academic colleague from Romania, Dr Whelan co-edited a book which critically examines the issue of consistency in the national enforcement of EU competition law.
In recent years, there has been a decentralisation of the enforcement of the EU competition law provisions, Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Consequently, the national application of these provisions has become increasingly more common across the European Union. This national application poses various challenges for those concerned about the consistent application of EU competition law. Dr Whelan’s co-edited collection provides an in-depth analysis of the most important limitations of, and the challenges concerning, the consistent application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU at national level: Alm??an and Whelan (eds), The Consistent Application of EU Competition Law - Substantive and Procedural Challenges, Springer, 2017.
This edited collection examines the issue of national enforcement from a number of distinct perspectives. It brings together 15 competition law experts, including three judges from the Court of Justice of the European Union (representing Romania, Ireland and Poland), both editors, as well as leading professors from countries such as France, Germany, Hungary and Belgium. According to Professor Alison Jones (King’s London London), who wrote the book’s Foreword, these contributions provide ‘a valuable and timely study of how the competition laws have been enforced since 2004 and how the various actors have sought to meet the challenges posed. It is widely researched and sets out a clear analysis of the complex issues arising. No doubt, it will provide helpful assistance to practitioners, students and researchers working in this area’.
According to Dr Josephine van Zeben (University of Oxford) and Dr Kai Purnhagen (Erasmus University, the Netherlands) ‘this volume, edited under the expert guidance of Alm??an and Whelan, highlights the substantive and procedural challenges that remain 10 years into this new era of EU competition law. In doing so, this volume addresses several key areas of research with great value for practitioners and academic commentators alike. …The topics confronted by this volume are important and timely in their own right. Their combined treatment by this varied group of scholars in a single volume allows us to identify synergies, clashes and overlaps between practices that would otherwise go undetected. In addition, the inclusion of experiences of Member States that have joined the EU since the adoption of Regulation 1/2003 incorporates perspectives that are vital to the future development of EU competition law.’
Divided into five parts, the book starts out by examining how the consistent enforcement of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU operates as a general EU competition policy. It then discusses several recent landmark cases of the European Court of Justice on Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, before proceeding to analyse certain additional, unique jurisdictional challenges to the uniform application of the EU competition law provisions (such as the criminalisation of EU competition law in some Member States). Subsequently, it focuses on one of the most important instruments that can help to achieve the uniform application of EU competition law in cases handled by the national courts: preliminary rulings. Finally, it provides selective examples of how Articles 101 and 102 TFEU are effectively applied at national level, thereby providing additional input into how problematic the issue of consistent application of EU competition law can be in practice.
More information on Dr Whelan’s co-edited collection can be found here.
