Agriculture, Food and Competition Law: Moving the Borders

Philippe Chauve (DG Comp), Antonia Parera and An Renckens discuss Agriculture, Food and Competition Law: Moving the Borders.

ABSTRACT: New competition rules for farmers adopted in 2013 provide new antitrust exemptions addressing two lingering issues of agricultural production: the lack of bargaining power of atomised farmers and the treatment of crises in agricultural production.

Pressure is mounting to address imbalances of bargaining power not only for farmers but at all levels of the food supply chains: this leads to pressure on competition enforcement, it creates tensions between competition and fair trading laws and it may lead to EU harmonisation of rules on fair trading.

The spotlight of competition enforcement is on retailers but the processing and manufacturing part of the chain is the largest source of antitrust cases.