This book charts the emergence of experimentalist governance in the implementation of EU competition law as a response to uncertainty and the limits of hierarchical enforcement in an increasingly dynamic and heterogeneous economic environment. It contributes to ongoing debates about the current state of EU competition law and provides an innovative account of emergent enforcement trends and its future direction. It also argues that an experimentalist evolution of competition law and market regulation attenuates concerns about the competitive strictures of EU law on national economic and regulatory institutions.

Through its focus on experimentalist governance, the book provides guidance on completing experimentalist infrastructures for market regulation, as well as on the role of courts in triggering and sustaining experimentalist solutions. As such, it offers a novel perspective on implementing competition law in the EU and beyond.

Table Of Contents

Introduction

I. Transformation of EU Competition Law: From Cross-border Transactions to Economic Efficiency?

II. A New Equilibrium for EU Competition Law: Legalism or Regulation?

III. The Status of Competition in the EU Internal Market: Competitive Markets and Public Interest Objectives

IV. Competition Law and Experimentalist Governance

V. The Scope Conditions for Experimentalist Governance in Competition Law

1. Networks and Hierarchy: Completing an Experimentalist Architecture?

I. The ECN as a Convergence Network?

II. Detecting Experimentalism in Light of Institutional Ambiguity

III. Enforcement Institutions, Techniques and Procedures

IV. Substantive Competition Law: Shadowing the Commission or Innovating?

V. Experimentalism and Institutional Design

VI. Conclusion

2. Experimentalism and the Choice of Enforcement Technique

I. From Rule-Enforcement to Problem-Solving in Market Regulation

II. The Transformation of EU Competition Enforcement: Legalism or Experimentalism?

III. The Use of Commitments in EU Competition Enforcement

IV. Commitment Decisions and Experimentalism

V. Experimentalism and the Choice of Enforcement Technique

VI. Conclusion

3. Peer Review in Experimentalist Market Regulation

I. The Forms and Functions of Peer Review

II. Formalising Peer Review in EU Market Regulation

III. Transformation and Assemblage: Experimentalist Peer Review in Competition Law?

IV. Conclusion

4. Courts and Experimentalist Competition Governance

I. Judicial Review of Competition Decision-Making

II. Dialogic Review: Judicial Review and Peer Accountability

III. Private Antitrust Litigation and Experimentalist Governance

IV. Conclusion

5. Experimentalist Governance and International Antitrust

I. Globalising Competition Law and Policy

II. An Informal Competition Network: A Stepping Stone to Experimentalism?

III. The ICN in its Second Decade: A Focus on Implementation

IV. Transnational Peer Review in Competition Law and Policy

V. Experimentalism and Shared Enforcement Context

VI. Conclusion

Conclusion

I. From Spontaneous Workarounds to Deliberate Experimentalism

II. Experimentalist Governance: Prospects, Limits and Constraints