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Boy, Laurence --- "Abuse of Market Power: Controlling Dominance or Protecting Competition?" [2006] ELECD 307; in Ullrich, Hanns (ed), "The Evolution of European Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: The Evolution of European Competition Law

Editor(s): Ullrich, Hanns

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845427016

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: Abuse of Market Power: Controlling Dominance or Protecting Competition?

Author(s): Boy, Laurence

Number of pages: 23

Extract:

8. Abuse of market power:* controlling
dominance or protecting competition?
Laurence Boy**

I INTRODUCTION
One of the impressive objectives that ASCOLA has set itself is to explore the
theoretical and doctrinal foundations of competition in the European Union
and to do so from a comparative perspective (particularly American and
national European laws). This choice of methodology is all the more vital
given that for years the market has assumed an almost mythical status and
governs the legal and political action of all nation-states.1 The system of
competition in place takes a different form depending on the stronger or


* Questions of choice of vocabulary can never be neutral. Lately, purely tech-
nical matters linked to the difficulties of legal translation which come up in different
systems from time to time have become controversies concerning the predominent use
of this or that language. It is clear that common vocabulary and syntax allow for the
exchange of ideas. They also allow, in a somewhat more insidious manner, for the
export of mental structures which then condition all forms of reasoning, especially in
law. We know this only too well. However, this is not to declare war on English. I
would only wish that British and American lawyers would turn their attention towards
Romano-Germanic concepts (Europe but also Latin America) in competition law in
order to understand that beyond problems of legal translation, there are cultures and
social choices which ought to be debated. Linked to the question of linguistic plural-
...