Recent Developments at DG Competition: 2019/2020
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Recent Developments at DG Competition: 2019/2020 Liliane Karlinger1 · Dimitrios Magos2 · Pierre Régibeau3 · Hans Zenger4 Accepted: 21 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The Directorate General for Competition at the European Commission enforces competition law in the areas of antitrust, merger control, and State aid. After providing a general presentation of the role of the Chief Competition Economist’s team, this article surveys some of the main developments at the Directorate General for Competition over 2019/2020. In particular, the article reviews the economic analysis in the Qualcomm predation case, recent developments in the assessment of vertical mergers, as well as the new “Temporary Framework” that has been developed in the wake of the COVID pandemic. Keywords Competition policy · Antitrust · Mergers · State aid · Predation · Vertical integration This article provides an overview of the activity of the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission (DG Competition) in 2019/2020 in the areas of antitrust, mergers, and State aid (Sect. 1). In the following sections, the contribution The views that are expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of DG Competition or the European Commission. We would like to thank Claes Bengtsson, Thomas Büttner and Szabolcs Lorincz for helpful comments. * Liliane Karlinger [email protected] Dimitrios Magos [email protected] Pierre Régibeau [email protected] Hans Zenger [email protected] 1
European Commission MADO 17/013, 1049 Brussels, Belgium
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European Commission MADO 17/061, 1049 Brussels, Belgium
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European Commission MADO 17/026, 1049 Brussels, Belgium
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European Commission MADO 17/014, 1049 Brussels, Belgium
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by the Chief Economist Team (CET) to the economic analysis in specific cases is presented: Sect. 2 reviews the Qualcomm predation case; Sect. 3 discusses recent developments in the assessment of vertical mergers; and Sect. 4 presents the Temporary Framework that was adopted in order to deal with a surge in State intervention to alleviate the COVID-induced economic crisis.
1 Main Developments in 2019/2020 1.1 The Chief Competition Economist Team The CET is a part of DG Competition. Its staff consists of around 30 economists (mostly holding a Ph.D.) with a mix of permanent and temporary positions. The CET is headed by the Chief Competition Economist, an external academic who is recruited for a 3‑year term. The current Chief Competition Economist is Pierre Régibeau, who succeeded Tommaso Valletti in 2019. The CET has both a support role and a scrutiny role. As part of its support role, the team provides guidance on methodological issues of economics and econometrics in the application of EU competition rules. It contributes both to individual competition cases—in particular, those that involve complex economic issues and quantitative analysis—and
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