ABSTRACT
Competition rules set the scope of economic freedom, affect the degree of economic concentration, and mark the distinction between the public and private realm. The US had competition rules on its books as early as 1890 with the famous Sherman Antitrust Act. In Europe, such rules only emerged at a later stage. A number of European governments introduced rules on cartels in the 1920s and 1930s, but the foundations for the regulation of competition were mainly laid after the Second World War, most notably in Germany, France, and the UK. Concurrent to national developments, competition rules became an integral part of the European integration project. The 1951 Treaty establishing European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) included detailed supranational competition provisions and in the subsequent Rome Treaty in 1957, which established the European Economic Community (EEC), competition received a strong constitutional basis. The establishment of “a system ensuring that competition in the internal market is not distorted” (Article 3(f)) became one of the Treaty’s central objectives. The actual competition provisions were stipulated in Articles 85 to 94, which were later renumbered by the consolidated Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union as Articles 101 to 109. These provisions target cartels and other restrictive business practices, the abuse of dominant market positions, state aid, and public enterprises. In 1989, the domain of supranational competition rules was extended with the Merger Regulation. This regulation was subsequently overhauled in 2004 in the context of a broader “modernization” of competition regulation.
