European Competition Law Annual 2008: Antitrust Settlements under EC Competition Law

Description

This is the thirteenth in a series on EU Competition Law and Policy produced under the auspices of the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence. The volume contains the written contributions of numerous competition policy experts, together with the transcripts of a roundtable debate which examined the subject of "settlements" between enforcers of competition law and defendant companies in cartel cases and in other types of antitrust cases. The Workshop participants included: -- senior judges from major jurisdictions (the European Union, Germany and the United States); -- senior enforcement officials and policy makers from the European Commission, from the national competition authorities of certain EU Member States and from the US Department of Justice and the US Federal Trade Commission; and -- renowned international international academics, legal practitioners and professional economists. In an intense, intimate environment, this group of experts debated a number of legal and economic issues pertaining to two broad lines of discussion: 1) settlements and plea agreements in cartel cases, including their links with leniency programs and with private enforcement; and 2) settlements in "commitment" cases decided under Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003 and under comparable procedures of national law.

Claus-Dieter Ehlermann is Senior Counsel with Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP in Brussels, former Professor of EC Law at the European University Institute in Florence, and former Director General in both the Competition Directorate and Legal Service of the European Commission. Mel Marquis teaches competition law and European Community law at the University of Verona. He also teaches regularly as a guest instructor at universities in Italy and elsewhere. He is an editor on the board of Mercato Concorrenza Regole and he has practiced as an attorney in the United States and Belgium.

The annual volumes and the papers have had substantial influence and are a wonderful source of the contrasting views on the actual legislation that followed. This perceptive, detailed, and properly edited tool for reforming policy was warmly praised by Judge Cook when he still served in the Court of First Instance. This is the thirteenth annual volume: two more workshops have been held. Long may it continue to guide both those framing policy and those advising on the legislation when enacted. -- Valentine Korah * World Competition, Volume 33, Issue 2 *