Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 8th Aug 2009 09:55 UTC
Earlier this year, the European Commission slammed Intel with a massive fine, penalising the chip maker for its anticompetitive practices. A report by the European Union's ombudsman has now criticised the EC for its conduct, as the EC did not perform proper record keeping, leading to the loss of some evidence. It won't turn the tide for Intel, but it does raise an important question: how fair are these EC antitrust proceedings?
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Member since:
2005-07-06
I keep wondering and wondering what crap people write about the EU without taking any effort in taking a looking at how the antitrust enforcement works
The argument that no defense is possible is utter nonsense. If the DG Competition finds a company in violating the rules of the internal market, it will send a "Statement of objections".
The company in question has to respond to this. If you think the DG Competition gets it wrong you have full posibilities to explain why. Address the objections and you get will away without fines in many cases. Remember the DG Competition does fine to punish, it fines to change behaviour.
True, the competition enforcement agency is not a court. It does not need to be either, I doubt that there is an EU member state that doesn't have an out-of-court competition enforcement agency.
If the company thinks the DG Competition sees it all wrong, then it can still have the court case. Not only that, like any court case, appeal is possible. So there are two opportunities to object to a ruling.
But: There is more. Like for any EU institution, the EU Ombudsman monitors if the DG Competition does it work correctly. So, there is a additional way a company can defend itself if DG Competition sees it all wrong.
Please tell me if that is not sufficient to protect the rights of a company like Intel.
Edited 2009-08-08 14:57 UTC