In this issue:
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The Burrell Lecture: Sir John Vickers
Competition Law and Economics: A Mid-Atlantic Viewpoint
In his Burrell Lecture, given before the Competition Law Association, the author compares and contrasts trends in competition law and policy on both sides of the Atlantic, noting areas in which EC and U.S. law and economics are converging, and other areas in which these regimes remain distinct.
British Airways v. Commission
ECJ Dismisses British Airways Appeal
The Commission is likely to take the view that the ECJ’s decision is entirely consistent with the Commission’s approach in its discussion paper on exclusionary abuses under Article 82, although the Commission’s original decision, along with the ECJ’s decision in the Michelin case which was found by the ECJ not to have been misapplied by the CFI in the BA case, has been called into question by several commentators as being at odds with a more effects-based approach under Article 82.
The Court of First Instance: Where it (All?) Happens
Whilst the Court of First Instance of the European Communities (“CFI”) had held the Commission accountable for a lack of attention to detail in a number of circumstances, in the European Court of Justice’s decision of 15 March 2007 in Case C-95/04 P “ British Airways v. Commission” it now emerges that the CFI itself will not suffer a similar fate at the hands of the ECJ.
Virgin v. British Airways: Orthodoxy Prevails
This article assesses the implications of the judgment for the future review of Article 82 cases, and compares and contrasts the approach taken by the Court with that taken in the DG Competition discussion paper on the application of Article 82 of the EC Treaty to exclusionary abuses.
