The Application of European Competition Law in Arbitration Proceedings De toepassing van ...

285 Pages·2014·1.94 MB·English

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The Application of European Competition Law
in Arbitration Proceedings

De toepassing van Europees mededingingsrecht
in arbitrageprocedures

Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam op gezag van
de rector magnificus
Prof.dr. H.A.P. Pols
en volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties

De openbare verdediging zal plaatsvinden op
maandag 15 december 2014 om 13.30 uur
door

Penio Penev Gospodinov
geboren te Stara Zagora, Bulgarije

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Promotiecommissie
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Promotor: Prof.dr. R.J. Van den Bergh
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Overige leden: Prof.mr.dr. L.T. Visscher
Prof.dr. T. Eger
Prof.dr. E. Santarelli

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This thesis was written as part of the European
Doctorate in Law and Economics programme

A collaboration between

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to my wife Irene
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Acknowledgements
IwouldliketogratefullyacknowledgetheEuropeanUnioninstitutions
and the European taxpayers for founding, hence making possible, my
Ph.D. work in the last three years.
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Preface
0.1 Motivation
Competition law is essential for the functioning of the European Union Treaties
andforachievingthegoalssettherein. Thisstatement,embodiedinthecase-law
of the European Court of Justice itself,1 is based on the wording of Article 3 of
the Treaty of the European Union (hereinafter Treaty of the European Union
(TEU)), namely the very article that states the aims of the European Union,
which reads: ‘[The European Union] shall work for the sustainable development
of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly com-
petitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress’.2
Article3doesnotonlyrefertotheexistenceofapositivecorrelationbetweeneco-
nomicgrowthandthelevelofcompetitioninagivenmarket. Ifwereaditinlight
oftheFreiburgschoolofeconomics’influenceontheEuropeanUnionculturaland
economicbackground, Article3impliesthatcompetitionisthenecessaryground
uponwhichsocialjusticecanbepursued. Inotherwords, theEuropeanUnionis
founded on the assumption that a sustainable economic growth in Europe passes
necessarily through market integration tied to the concept of workable competi-
tion.
On these premises the European Union produced, on the one hand, a body
of substantive law defining a framework of workable competition that is pursued
1Case C-126/97, Eco Swiss China Time Ltd v Benetton International NV [1999] I-
3055,availableatthisURLaddress: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=
CELEX:61997J0126:EN:HTML.
2Article 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union, available at this URL address: http://
eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:12012M/TXT.
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0. PREFACE
by the lawmaker, and on the other hand, a body of procedural law determining
to what extent the workable competition objective can be, and is, practically
achieved. Leaving aside any discussion about the content of the EU competition
policy, that is the substantive part, this research is focused on the latter, namely
the procedural one. This decision is based on the assumption that, a legal norm
is only as good as the mechanism by which it is enforced. Therefore any attempt
to strengthen the EU competition law should not overlook the legal enforcement
procedure.
The traditional antitrust enforcement systems are both public and private.
Private enforcement contributes to pursue effectively and efficiently competition
lawobjectivesalongsidewithpublicenforcement. InthewordsofMarioMontias
European Commissioner for Competition, private enforcement has the potential,
ifcoordinatedwithpublicenforcement,tosignificantlycontributetoanidealcom-
petition law enforcement model which combines both the pillars, private as well
as public, and promotes citizens as the principal guardians of the legal integrity
ofcompetitionlawinEurope.3 Nowadays,however,Europeancompetitionlawis
mostly enforced by competition authorities and subject to the review of courts.
In fact, it is widely acknowledged that private enforcement of both European
and national competition law has been extremely limited in Europe.4Hence, it
is possible to argue that the current European procedural law framework does
not provide private parties with the incentives that are necessary to achieve the
optimal level of private enforcement.
StrengtheningtheEuropeanprivateenforcementhasbeenatthecentreofthe
debate on competition law for almost ten years.5 However, on the one hand, the
3Monti,Mario. ‘PrivateLitigationasaKeyComplementtoPublicEnforcementofCompe-
titionRulesandtheFirstConclusionsontheImplementationoftheNewMergerRegulation.’
speechgiveninBrussels,2004.
4See the Study on the conditions of claims for damages in case of infringement of EC
competition rules, available at this URL address: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/
actionsdamages/study.html.
5The debate started with the Commission [2005, 2008, 2011] and has recently resulted
in the Directive on damages actions for breach of the EU antitrust rules, proposed by the
Commission and available at this URL address: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/
actionsdamages/documents.html.
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