EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

Prague, Czechia

i.e., measure preventing expansion of such undertakings on internal market via acquisitions, and at the same time, scrutiny of foreign subsidies under EU law rules, i.e., review similar to state aid assessment. 4. Conclusion Current competition law faces several challenges. It shall answer to dynamic development of digital markets, greening EU policies, value-cantered policies of the EU, including strong protections of right of individual, etc. Along with these challenges, there are challenges on the position of competition law in the system of legal regulation, in the system of “economic constitution”. There is not only a question, what shall be protected, but also how shall it be protected. As Janus, competition law shows two faces. One is complex with plenty of economic theories and time-consuming public measures and private litigations. The other one has effective measures that can overlap to other policies. Several examples of bypassing vis-à-vis competition were identified: bypassing competition law by specific regulation that are carved out of the flexible body of competition law, in particular, national and EU law backed regulation of unfair trade practices and the Draft DMA. The main risk of these type of bypasses is possible violation of ne bis in idem safeguard, i.e., threatening one of the values of the EU. Moreover, there is also a threat of fragmentation of EU legal order and proliferation of EU legislation based purely on Article 114 TFEU, even it is linked to competition law, rather than on solid basis of Articles 103 and Art. 352 TFEU. On the other hand, the second group of attempts, i.e., enforcement of non-competition policies via competition law confirms flexibility of competition law and its ability to accommodate other policies, such as horizontal policies or international trade defence Acknowledgements The paper was prepared within the project VEGA No 2/0167/19 (2019-2022) ‘ The Real Convergence in the European Union: Empirical Evidence and Implications ’ References [1] Bejček, J. (2019). Spontánnost soukromého právního řádu versus entorpie jeho reg ulatorních věřejnoprávních korekcí. In K. Csach (Ed.), Ad hoc legislatíva v súkrom nom práve : XIV. Lubyho právnické dni : medzinárodná vedecké konferencia : Smolenice 19.–20. 9. 2019 (pp. 47–75). Nakladatelství Leges. [2] Bejček, J., Petr, M., & Pipková, P. (2019). In A. Piszcz & A. Jasser (Eds.), Legislation Covering Business-to-business Unfair Trading Practices in the Food Supply Chain in Cen tral and Eastern European Countries (pp. 85–124). University of Warsaw.

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