Dr Or Brook awarded the Law Faculty Prize of the University of Amsterdam
Dr Or Brook, Lecturer of Competition Law at Leeds, has been awarded the Law Faculty Prize of the University of Amsterdam for the Best Publication of the Academic Year 2018-2019 for young researchers.
The prize was awarded for her article “Struggling with Article 101 (3) TFEU: Diverging approaches of the Commission, EU courts, and five competition authorities”, published in the Common Market Law Review.
The 2004 reform of EU competition law has decentralised the enforcement. Nowadays, almost 90% of the enforcement is carried out by the 28 EU national competition authorities (“NCAs”). Since the application of the EU competition provisions merits a wide margin of discretion, the NCAs’ national, economic, and political traditions are prone to lead to a fragmented application. Despite that, the reform was based on the assumption that the obligation to apply the same Treaty provisions is sufficient to ensure a uniform administration of the law.
This paper questions this assumption. Based on a large database of over 3100 cases, it presents empirical evidence indicating that the Commission, EU courts and five NCAs have followed very different interpretations of the law. The paper uses the debate over the types of benefits that can be taken under Article 101(3) TFEU to justify an otherwise anti-competitive agreement as an illustrative example of the struggle between the different competition authorities in shaping the future of EU competition policy.
Or Brook, said: “I’m truly honored to receive this award, especially since the empirical study of EU and competition law is an unusual approach in Europe. I believe that this recognition from the University of Amsterdam is a testament that this is starting to change”.
