European Economic Law: A Seminar

Abstract

This paper addresses the legal framework of the internal market of the European Community, in special economic freedoms (free movement of goods, persons, services and capital) and their exceptions, as well as competition law concerns such as antitrust and cartels (the elimination of agreements which restrict competition - e.g. pricefixing agreements, or cartels, between competitors -, and of abuses by firms who hold a dominant position on the market), merger control (the control of mergers between firms - e.g. a merger between two large groups which would result in their dominating the market), liberalization (introducing competition in monopolistic economic sectors - e.g. telecommunications), and state aid control (the control of state aid measures by Member State governments to ensure that such measures do not distort competition in the Common Market - e.g. the prohibition of a state grant designed to keep a loss-making firm in business even though it has no prospect of recovery). Moreover, it provides an overview of the general framework of European electronic commerce law, addressing issues such as, namely, the single market of information society services, contract and liability law, consumer protection, and intellectual property.