Recent Developments at DG Competition: 2017/2018

Posted by Social Science Research Network

Recent Developments at DG Competition: 2017/2018

By Andrea Amelio, Gabor Koltay, Penelope Papandropoulos & Hans Zenger (European Union), Thomas Buettner, Cyril Hariton (Toulouse Business School), Geza Sapi (European Commission) & Tommaso M. Valletti (Imperial College Business School)

The Directorate General for Competition at the European Commission enforces competition law in the areas of antitrust, merger control, and state aids. This year’s article provides first a general presentation of the role of the Chief Competition Economist’s team and surveys some of the main achievements of the Directorate General for Competition over 2017/2018. The article then reviews: the Google Search (Shopping) case, the role of price discrimination in state aid cases; and the use of counterfactuals in merger cases where alternative transactions might have occurred absent the merger.