Blanco, Luis Ortiz; Colomo, Pablo Ibáñez --- "Evolving Priorities and Rising Standards: Spanish Law on Abuses of Market Power in the Light of the 2008 Guidance Paper on Article 82 EC" [2011] ELECD 293; in Pace, Federico Lorenzo (ed), "European Competition Law: The Impact of the Commission’s Guidance on Article 102" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: European Competition Law: The Impact of the Commission’s Guidance on Article 102

Editor(s): Pace, Federico Lorenzo

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848447738

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Evolving Priorities and Rising Standards: Spanish Law on Abuses of Market Power in the Light of the 2008 Guidance Paper on Article 82 EC

Author(s): Blanco, Luis Ortiz; Colomo, Pablo Ibáñez

Number of pages: 40

Extract:

4. Evolving priorities and rising
standards: Spanish law on abuses of
market power in the light of the 2008
Guidance Paper on Article 82 EC
Luis Ortiz Blanco and Pablo Ibáñez Colomo

1 INTRODUCTION

The interpretation and implementation of provisions dealing with abuses
of market power have proven to be by far the most controversial issues in
substantive competition law. Broad consensus at the international level
has been reached, for instance, in the field of merger control, where the
influence of economic analysis has led to the adoption by competition
authorities of an ex ante analytical framework for each operation.1 As
for agreements between undertakings, the prohibition on price-fixing and
market-sharing cartels seems as uncontroversial as competition policy in
the field of vertical restraints, where the sources of potential competition
concerns are now clearly identified and codified.2



The authors wish to thank the Garrigues Competition Team in Madrid for excel-
lent research and documentation assistance. Translations from Spanish are the
authors'.
1 After a new merger control regulation was introduced in 2004 (Council

Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentra-
tions between undertakings OJ (2004) L 24/1), the European Commission has
adopted two sets of guidelines for the assessment of horizontal and non-horizontal
mergers, which codify case law and administrative practice and attempt to endorse
mainstream economic theory. See Guidelines on the assessment of non-horizontal
mergers under the Council Regulation on the control of concentrations ...