Cooke, John D. --- "Administrative Regulation versus Private Enforcement – the EU Perspective" [2010] ELECD 354; in Mateus, M. Abel; Moreira, Teresa (eds), "Competition Law and Economics" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Competition Law and Economics

Editor(s): Mateus, M. Abel; Moreira, Teresa

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848449992

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Administrative Regulation versus Private Enforcement – the EU Perspective

Author(s): Cooke, John D.

Number of pages: 12

Extract:

6. Administrative regulation versus
private enforcement ­ the EU
perspective
John D. Cooke*

This section of the conference is an attempt to answer a series of ques-
tions on the interplay between the different methods of judicial control of
the enforcement of competition rules ­ judicial review of administrative
enforcement by competition authorities as opposed to judging and enforc-
ing the rules by means of private civil litigation before national courts.
What are the prospects for private enforcement in the EU? Can public and
private enforcement be combined?
I also see that I am expected to give you the EU perspective on the costs
and benefits of one approach as against the other.
I am not sure that there is an EU perspective as such, on the many
issues which this topic raises or that I am the one to articulate it even if
I knew what it was. What follows therefore is my own purely personal
reflection on a few aspects of the problem based on my experience of
over 35 years. In that regard, perhaps I can at least say by way of intro-
duction that my experience covers both methods of enforcement. When
I was practising at the Bar prior to going to Luxembourg 12 years ago,
I was involved in some of the cases in which EC and national competi-
tion rules were sought to be enforced by private litigation. Those cases
were, of course, mostly in the common law jurisdictions and particularly
in Ireland. In some instances ...