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The uniform application of european competition law: a non-negotiable value
Full text linkCompetition enforcement is facing an increasing need for international cooperation.
Such phenomena would require that all the subjects involved in ensuring
the respect of the competition principle (either competition authorities, or courts
depending on the national peculiarities of each national/regional enforcement
system) communicate, co-operate, and interact one another constantly, on a daily
basis. This is the case both at global as much as at European level.
Notwithstanding international co-operation has registered a positive trend during
the last decade, the outcomes achieved so far are not satisfying. The inability of
regional and national legal systems to provide effective answers to the need of
greater co-operation in competition law enforcement is undermining the
constitutional structure of the major western, capitalistic, liberal democracies. The
credibility and the utility of competition enforcement regimes are also under
attack. Individuals and companies have always less fate in the fairness and
effectiveness of competition enforcement proceedings. This has led to calls for a
fundamental rethink of the principles and purpose of competition law and policy. Due to the increased national markets’ integration and firms’ interaction on a global
scale, international co-operation has become one of the most crucial challenge to
be solved by competition enforcers. The incapability (and sometimes
unwillingness) of competition enforcers to effectively and fully co-operate has led
to conflicting (and embarrassing) results. The victim of competition enforcers’
international co-operation shortages has been the principle of uniform application
of competition law. A given conduct X has been deemed anticompetitive in Country
Y, and lawful in Country Z. While such situation might be tolerable at global level,
it is not within the European Union (‘EU’) due to the existence of the EU Single
Market, which does not offer room for the existence of different EU competition
rules across European Member States (‘MS’).
Within the EU infrastructure, indeed, the existence of inconsistencies in the
enforcement of EU competition law may (i) compromise the internal market, (ii)
increase the cost of international trade, (iii) raise the threat of externalities and races
to the bottom, (iv) set back the progress of a unified body of case law and, most
importantly, (v) weaken the legal certainty and predictability of EU competition
law, thus undermining the credibility of the all EU competition enforcement
regime.In other words, inconsistencies in the enforcement of EU competition law
may compromise the entire EU infrastructure.From this emerges that the uniform
application of EU Competition Law is an essential and non-negotiable value.
Preserving the uniform application of EU Competition Law, however, requires coordination
and collaboration among different sets of subjects. Due to the complexity of the EU competition enforcement system, the EU Commission (‘Commission’ or
‘EC’), the National Competition Authorities (NCAs), the National as well as the
EU Courts are all called to play a role in carrying out the heavy task of ensuring
and protecting the uniform application of EU Competition Law. At EU level,
therefore, the uniform application of EU Competition Law requires a co-ordination
between both Public and Private Enforcement.
Based on this premises, this thesis’s relevance lies in its questioning who should
produce EU competition law’s substantive policy, mainly focusing on digital
markets. It focuses on new policy-making methods; and renegotiating Member
States’ roles, vis-à-vis the Commission. In EU competition law, for example, there
is conflict regarding aims and methods. Should the Commission suppress this as
damaging fragmentation, imposing its regulatory vision; or, celebrate this debate in
areas of doubt? This thesis turns the spotlight on these crucial issues.
In order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the thesis will be structured as
follow:
(i) Chapter 1, as introductory chapter, will set the stage for the reforms to be
suggested in Chapters 2 and 3. Specifically, it will show the main factors driving
up the demand for international co-operation among competition enforcers. It will
also offer a picture of the status and forms of international co-operation in the
competition enforcement world as well as describing its current risk, and problems.
Such representation will be also done through a collection of multijurisdictional
cases. Finally, it will analyse how the demand for international co-operation has
been dealt with at regional level, with a particular focus on the EU;
(ii) Chapter 2 will analyse how the principle of uniform application of EU
Competition Law is protected within the EU Public enforcement framework as
represented by the European Competition Network (‘ECN’). Particularly, Chapter
2, will firstly retrace the ECN’s history, showing the reasons behind its current
configuration, and introduce the ECN’s operating mechanism. Secondly, it will
analyse which are the problematic aspects of the current EU Public enforcement
system in terms of ensuring the respect of the principle of uniform application of
EU competition law. Finally, it will present a reform of the EU Public enforcement
system that the author of this thesis believes needed both: (i) to ensure the uniform
application of EU Competition Law within the EU Single Market; (ii) to allow the
ECN to be able to cope with the challenges presented by the digitalisation of the
economy.
(iii) Chapter 3 will analyse how the principle of uniform application of EU
Competition Law is protected within the EU Private Enforcement framework. Since
such complex task within the EU system is left to Article 16(1), Regulation n.
1/2003 (‘Art. 16(1)’), Chapter 3, will firstly present the contents of Art. 16 (1) and
its predominantly accepted interpretation. Subsequently, Chapter 3 will analyse the
historical and legal reasons that led to the adoption of Art. 16 (1) and then it will
suggest a new interpretation of Art. 16(1) that is most consistent with its historical
purposes and background. According to the author of this thesis, while it is not
strictly necessary to modify the literal datum of Art. 16(1), a change in its
interpretation is needed to ensure the uniform application of EU competition law
within the EU Private Enforcement ecosystem. Finally, Chapter 3 will evaluate the
boundaries of the binding effects of Commission’s decisions ex Art. 16 (1), and it
will investigate the relationship existing between those effects and the principles of
‘res judicata’ and ‘nemo iudex in causa sua’.
(iv) Chapter 4 will offer some conclusions
To be or not to be (inflamed) - is that the question in anti-inflammatory drug therapy of neurodegenerative disorders?
No full textA sustained inflammatory reaction is present in acute (e.g. stroke) and chronic (e.g. Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis) neurodegenerative disorders. Inflammation, which is fostered by both residential glial cells and blood-circulating cells that infiltrate the diseased brain, probably starts as a time- and site-specific defense mechanism that could later evolve into a destructive and uncontrolled reaction. In this article, we review the crucial dichotomy of brain inflammation, where failure to resolve an acute beneficial response could lead to a vicious and anarchic state of chronic activation. The possible use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for the management of neurodegenerative diseases is discussed in light of recent data demonstrating a neuroprotective role of local innate and adaptive immune responses. Novel therapeutic approaches must rely on potentiation of endogenous anti-inflammatory pathways, identification of early markers of neuronal deterioration and a combination treatment involving immune modulation and antiinflammatory therapies
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Le decisioni con impegni nei procedimenti antitrust tra sussidiarietà e paradigma neoliberale
No full textAppropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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