Struggling With Article 101(3) Tfeu: Diverging Approaches Of The Commission, Eu Courts, And Five Competition Authorities

The decentralized enforcement regime of EU competition law is based on

the assumption that the obligation to apply the same Treaty provisions is

sufficient to ensure a uniform administration of the law. This paper

questions this assumption. Based on a systematic analysis of a large

database of cases, it presents empirical evidence indicating that the

Commission, EU courts and five national competition authorities have

followed very different interpretations of the law when applying Article

101(3)TFEU. The paper uses the debate over the types of benefit that can

be examined under Article 101(3) TFEU as an illustrative example of the

struggle between the different competition authorities in shaping the

future of EU competition policy.