European Antitrust Policy 1957-2004: An Analysis of Commission Decisions

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

In what I believe is the most important empirical paper to be written about the EU this year so far, Martin Carree, University of Maastricht - Department of Organization & Strategy, Andrea Guenster, University of Maastricht - Department of Organization & Strategy, and Maarten Pieter Schinkel, University of Amsterdam - Amsterdam Center for Law & Economics have produced European Antitrust Policy 1957-2004: An Analysis of Commission Decisions.

ABSTRACT: This paper provides a survey of European antitrust law enforcement since its foundation in the Treaty of Rome of 1957. We present a complete overview and statistical analysis of all 538 formal Commission decisions adopted up to 2004 under Articles 81, 82 and 86 of the European Community Treaty. We report a range of summary statistics concerning report route, investigation duration, length of the decision, decision type, imposed fines, number of parties, sector classification, and Commissioner and Director General responsible. The statistics are linked to changes in legislation and administrative implementation, thereby providing a historical overview that summarizes the Commission's work in the area of antitrust. Against 166 of 538 decisions one or more appeals were lodged. We estimate the determinants of probability that a finding of an infringement is appealed against with the Court of First Instance and/or the European Court of Justice.