Collective Dominance in Competition Law and Policy of the European Union: An Assessment

The European Commission, supported by the European Courts, developed the framework for competition law and policy in Europe. One of the main purposes of this policy is to build a conceptual and legal foundation to promote market opening and to strengthen community institutions. In this policy framework, ‘collective dominance’ of firms in the European market is the utmost important issue. To deal with this issue, the competition law of the European Union is now relying more on the extensive network of national-level authorities and applying broadly consistent substantive rules. The notion of ‘collective dominance’ in European competition policy is in transition towards policy based on market-center economic considerations as regulations and guidelines increasingly follow an analytic format based on economic perspectives.