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Lawsky, David --- "Information Please: Opening Antitrust to the Public: Why More European Union Court and Commission Documents and Hearings Should No Longer Be Secret" [2006] ELECD 537; in Marsden, Philip (ed), "Handbook of Research in Trans-Atlantic Antitrust" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Handbook of Research in Trans-Atlantic Antitrust

Editor(s): Marsden, Philip

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845421816

Section: Chapter 20

Section Title: Information Please: Opening Antitrust to the Public: Why More European Union Court and Commission Documents and Hearings Should No Longer Be Secret

Author(s): Lawsky, David

Number of pages: 14

Extract:

20 Information please: opening antitrust to
the public: why more European Union
Court and Commission documents and
hearings should no longer be secret
David Lawsky1


Introduction
Antitrust agencies in the United States and Europe play peek-a-boo with
the public, each showing off bits and pieces of their very different processes
for making decisions. Americans have something to learn from the
Europeans' carefully thought out administrative process. But Europeans
also have something to learn from Americans about opening up institu-
tions, lessons that will benefit the public and the decision-making bodies
themselves: the European Commission and European Union courts.
I will argue here that when the European Commission acts against cartels
or abuses of dominance the public should have access to some of the docu-
ments during the case and should be able to attend hearings now closed.
Even more important, in merger cases as well as cartel and dominance
cases, the European courts need to let the public see far more of what they
do, including access to all filings.2
The European Commission has a formal timetable for each step of its
administrative review of mergers and informs the public of its progress
along the way. This system has been praised by lawyers for being both more
organized and, crucially for our purposes, more open than the American
system. For example, Warren Grimes has suggested that the American
antitrust agencies should follow the European example and issue a rea-
soned decision in every case.3 But ...