From Coercion to Cooperation: Settlement within EU Competition Law

Abstract

This paper explores the proliferation of settlement mechanisms within contemporary antitrust enforcement pursued by the European Commission under Regulation 1/2003. To do so, it develops a taxonomy of settlement devices deployed in recent enforcement activity, considering for each the level of cooperation required, alongside what is at stake for defendants and the Commission in terms of the outcome of the administrative process. The chapter then addresses both the underlying motivations, and the broader implications in terms of law and practice, of the shift from coercion to cooperation as the default model of competition enforcement in the EU.

Keywords: settlement, antitrust, EU, competition law