Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Geradin, Damien --- "Efficiency Claims in EC Competition Law and Sector-Specific Regulation" [2006] ELECD 313; 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 11

Section Title: Efficiency Claims in EC Competition Law and Sector-Specific Regulation

Author(s): Geradin, Damien

Number of pages: 44

Extract:

11. Efficiency claims in EC competition
law and sector-specific regulation
Damien Geradin*

I INTRODUCTION
Many competition lawyers and economists argue that the primary objective of
competition law regimes is to promote economic efficiency.1 Yet few of these
regimes define what should be understood by economic efficiency. For
instance, although this concept is referred to in an increasingly large number
of regulations, guidelines, and so on, EC competition law does not offer any
precise definition of economic efficiency. The problem is made more serious
by the fact that economists do not necessarily agree on the meaning of effi-
ciency and that, in a given proceeding, the economic consultants of both
parties will often disagree over the efficiency or inefficiency of a given prac-
tice or behaviour.
This issue has become of considerable importance as economic analysis is
now at the core of competition law analysis.2 Economic analysis not only
plays a role in determining the types of agreements/mergers that create compe-
tition law concerns but also the types of justification that can be used to justify
such agreements/mergers. When asked to examine a restrictive agreement or a
merger, the test to be performed by competition authorities essentially
amounts to determining whether the negative effects of the agreement/trans-
action on competition are more than compensated for by `efficiencies' taking
the form of the production of new and/or better products, the realization of


* Member of the Brussels bar. Professor of Law and Director of the Institute ...