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New Approaches to Assessing Abuse of Dominant Position in relation to Standard Essential Patents in EU Competition Law.
Květoň, Robert ; Šmejkal, Václav (advisor) ; Vondráčková, Aneta (referee)
1 NEW APPROACHES TO ASSESSING ABUSE OF DOMINANT POSITION IN RELATION TO STANDARD-ESSENTIAL PATENTS IN EU COMPETITION LAW ABSTRACT The present thesis deals with the assessment of abuse of dominance in relation to a Standard- Essential Patents as a globally developing phenomenon of recent years. The assessment of abuse of dominance is examined in the context of EU competition law, in particular in the light of recent decision-making practice of the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the EU. This thesis examines whether European competition law is close to finding a firm standard in assessing abuses of dominance by competitors who benefit from intellectual property rights from patents on standardised technology. This firm standard is specified in two ways. The first level is whether in EU competition law the unwillingness of the owner of the Standard-Essential Patent to license such a patent is considered as an abuse of a dominant position. On the second level, it analyses under which circumstances a negatory action brought by a Standard-Essential Patent owner against a licensee in bad faith can be considered as an abuse of his dominant position. In Chapter 2, the thesis introduces key concepts related to Standard-Essential Patents and standardisation. Chapters 3 and 4 analyse the decision-making...
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Consumer and its protection in EU competition law
Janiková, Karolína ; Šmejkal, Václav (advisor) ; Exner, Jan (referee)
The submitted work concerns itself with the topic of protection of consumers and their welfare as an objective of the EU competition policy, as well as with the regulation of EU competition law and the way in which this objective has changed over time, both in fact and in legal perception. The first, theoretical, part of this thesis explains concepts essential for this analysis - the concept of "consumer" and its specifics in the context of the EU competition law, the definition of "consumer welfare" and the general relationship between consumer protection law and competition law. The second part deals with the historical development of consumer protection as an objective of EU competition policy. Particular attention is paid to the progress made in understanding the importance of this objective over time. An emphasis is placed on it in the political declarations of the Commission's representatives and subsequently, whether and how these political declarations and efforts were reflected in the actually adopted documents of competition law. This section therefore analyses the processes that formed the ideological basis for consumer protection under competition law and how they were reflected in formal sources of law. Although, at the doctrinal and political level, the parameter of consumer protection and...
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State Aid and Financing of Transport Infrastructure under the EU law
Albrecht, Patrik ; Šmejkal, Václav (advisor) ; Svobodová, Magdaléna (referee)
This diploma thesis deals with state aid and financing of transport infrastructure under the EU law. The main aim of the thesis is to answer the question, whether the financing of transport infrastructure is a state aid and if it so, would it be compatible with the internal market. Member States have to ask these questions while they are deciding whether they should use public funds for specific infrastructural project in transportation industry. The thesis is divided into two main parts. In the first part author is focused on airport transportation industry, which has been liberalized since early 90's of 20th century. Thanks to the market opening the completion came in and Commission started to control financing of airport infrastructures. Airports were no longer recognized as an infrastructural facilities and their operators were found as an undertaking in the sense of competition judicature. That is why the first chapter is dealing with the historical excursus of state aid law in the field of aviation infrastructure. The author describes the fundamental decisions of Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union; a great focus is placed on analysis of the decision on the Leipzig- Halle case. In the third chapter of the first part, there is a deep analysis of the relevant documents...
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Specificity of the protection of economic competition in the EU in the field of energy industry
Adamčíková, Leona ; Šmejkal, Václav (advisor) ; Handrlica, Jakub (referee)
This Master's Thesis deals with the EU competition law enforcement towards undertakings in the energy industry. The attention of the thesis is devoted only to the part of the energy industry, gas and electricity sectors, as the EU decided to liberalize these markets in the mid-1990s with the aim of gradually transform them into the single European energy market, which will be fully open to the competition. The aim of the thesis is to answer research question, what the specifics of the EU competition law enforcement towards undertakings in the energy industry are. The first chapter deals with the fundamental competition law rules, which are analysed in the thesis within the energy industry. These are prohibition of the agreements which have as their object or effect the restriction of competition (regulated in the Art. 101 TFEU) and prohibition of the abuse of dominant position (regulated in the Art. 102 TFEU). Besides these rules, which are enforced ex post, the chapter also deals with the control of merger of undertakings by the Commission as an ex ant competition law enforcement towards notified mergers. The chapter further looks at the main objectives of the competition law and the means the Commission has at its disposal to competition law enforcement. The second chapter briefly describes the...
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Block exemption in automobile industry and its position within EU competition law
Hirsch, Maxim ; Šmejkal, Václav (advisor) ; Scheu, Harald Christian (referee)
This diploma thesis deals with block exemptions in the automobile industry. It analyses their position within EU competition law. The aim of the thesis is to answer the question whether the sector-specific block exemptions regulating the automobile industry comply with general aims of EU competition law and to analyse their relationship with EU competition law as lex generalis and lex specialis. In order to achieve these goals, the thesis is divided into 5 chapters. The first chapter deals with block exemptions in general. It describes the reason why block exemptions have been invented and their subsequent development. In the first chapter there is also an explanation of their structure and method of legal regulation. This chapter then describes development of the general block exemption for vertical agreements and of the block exemption in the automobile industry. Description of their development is based on the decision in BMW case because rules set in this decision were the basis of the first block exemption in automobile industry. Second chapter deals with the newest block exemption in automobile industry - regulation No. 461/2010. With the newest block exemption the era of sector specific rules for the sale of new vehicles has ended. Regulation No. 461/2010 creates specific rules only for the...
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