The enforcement of EC competition law

EC competition law is enforced at two levels: at Community level by the Commission, and at national level by the national competition authorities and the national courts. For almost forty years, the weight of enforcement policy has fallen on the Commission. In the present system, while national courts and national authorities can apply Articles 81(1) and (2) EC and Article 82 EC, only the Commission can also apply Article 81(3) EC. Mario Monti, the Competition Commissioner, has recently described this division of competences as ‘telling someone to play chess while giving him only half the pieces’. ¹ Although the Treaty did not make it clear that only the Commission could grant exemptions, the main enforcement regulation, Regulation 17/62, ² explicitly reserved to the Commission the sole power to grant exemptions from the prohibition in Article 81(1) EC. ³ There are two types of exemption, individual exemption and block exemption, discussed above. ⁴ To benefit from an individual exemption, the parties must, in the present system, notify the agreement in question to the Commission. If, however, an agreement falls within the scope of a block exemption, there is no need to notify it to the Commission.