The United States and the European Union operate in the world’s two most powerful systems of competition law and policy, whose enforcement and judicial institutions employ similar concepts and legal language. Nevertheless, the two systems have reached different results across a number of significant antitrust issues. One such issue is the approach taken towards vertical price fixing and, in particular, the practice referred to as resale price maintenance. Resale price maintenance generally includes the predetermination of a fixed or minimum retail price in a vertical distribution agreement.   In European competition law, resale price maintenance is considered a hardcore restriction of competition and is thereby presumed to infringe Article 101(1) TFEU by its object. The presumption is strong and has proved difficult to rebut in practice. In the United States, the US Supreme Court changed its approach towards resale price maintenance in its 2007 landmark decision Leegin. The majority overturned its nearly century old precedent regarding resale price maintenance, concluding that the practice is no longer to be treated as a per se violation of antitrust law but should instead be subject to a rule of reason analysis. The judgment was the last in a series of different cases, all demonstrating a complete reversal in the approach towards both price and non-price vertical restraints. The change of approach in the United States was largely influenced by developments in economic thinking addressing the potential pro-competitive effects of resale price maintenance. Even though the European Union has modernised and renewed its competition rules to be more in line with economic theory, some uncertainties and difficulties seem to remain regarding the scope of the prohibition on anti-competitive agreements and the possible efficiencies resulting from vertical price fixing. These issues have constituted the main focus for this thesis, which aims to examine vertical price fixing and the prohibition on anti-competitive agreements in Article 101(1) TFEU.   The policy view towards resale price maintenance in the European Union has been subject to great discussion and debate, and it has been argued that the approach towards the restriction is too strict. The legal framework for vertical agreements is now up for review and it is of interest to examine the appropriateness of the prohibition on resale price maintenance, especially in the light of two recent judgments. The thesis shows that there might be sufficient arguments for a change of approach towards resale price maintenance also in the European Union.

This thesis seeks to address the question: to what extent is the EU Directive on Antitrust Damages Actions sufficiently framed in its terms to achieve its underlying aims and objectives? It is argued that the Directive has one overriding goal: to make it easier for the victims of infringements of EU competition law - typically end-consumers - to claim compensation from the infringers. It is also argued that the authors of the Directive present a convincing case that one of the main reasons for the lack of victims claiming - let alone being awarded - compensation, prior to the adoption of the Directive, is weaknesses with the existing legal framework governing competition law damages actions at national level. The thesis examines four of the main areas covered by the Directive: disclosure of evidence; the effect of NCA decisions; limitation periods; and indirect purchaser standing and the passing-on defence. In each case, the relevant rules from the Directive are set out and an assessment is carried out. A crucial part of this assessment consists of seeking to ascertain the problems facing potential claimants prior to the adoption of the Directive and asking whether the Directive appears well-framed in terms of addressing those problems. As well as considering case law of the EU courts, the legal rules and jurisprudence of two leading Member States - the United Kingdom and Italy - are used as primary case studies in carrying out this assessment. The assessment of the measures considered in this thesis is a nuanced one. It is argued that the measures set out in Chapter II of the Directive on disclosure of evidence are generally well-framed and beneficial for claimants, crucially showing a keen understanding of the relationship between private and public enforcement. The assessment of Article 9, on the effect of NCA decisions is much less positive. It is argued that the measures are drafted in vague terms and compare unfavourably with existing rules and practices in the two case-study Member States. It is argued that while the measures set out in Article 10 on limitation periods do represent an improvement for claimants in certain respects, there are a number of key issues that they fail to address. Finally, the assessment of Articles 12 to 15 on indirect purchaser standing and the passing-on defence is positive in some respects, but it is argued that many of the measures do not adequately address the issues that they purport to tackle. It is also argued that these measures are unlikely to bear fruit, without certain issues which are not covered by the Directive, being addressed. Ultimately it is concluded that the Directive makes some important strides towards the realisation of its underlying aims and objectives, but that many of the measures examined are found to be too vague, too weak or too incomplete to fully address the key issues and that the Directive also fails to address some important issues at all.

During the last two decades many pharmaceutical originator companies have struggled with refilling its pipelines with novel pharmaceutical products. At the same time many of these companies have lost patent protection for its most profitable drugs and more are expected to do so in the very near future. When pharmaceutical patents expire it is generally expected that generic manufacturers enter the market with significantly cheaper versions of the pre-patented drugs. Accordingly, generic entry poses strong competitive price pressure on originator companies and the latter may therefore be inclined to hinder these competitors from entering the market. The preparations for generic launch often starts a few years before patent expiry and it is therefore common that patent disputes arise. Patent disputes are not only highly complex, time consuming and costly, the disputes are often also characterized by a high degree of uncertainty to whether or not the patents are infringed and/or valid. Thus, incentives for settling the disputes out of court are often high for both originator and generic undertakings. Legitimate patent settlement agreements are generally not considered to pose any competitive concern. However, the Commission has observed that these settlement agreements has been used to conceal anti-competitive terms by which the originator companies sets out to buy off its generic competitors for delaying its plans to enter the market. These anti-competitive arrangements are more generally known as pay-for-delay settlements. The Commission has issued two decisions against pay-for-delay settlements of which the GC has confirmed the Commission’s assessments. After fulfilling a three-step criteria developed by the Commission, these agreements were considered to have as its object the restriction of competition within the meaning of article 101 (1) TFEU. When an agreement is categorized as a restriction by object it is considered to be by its very nature restrictive of competition, and is therefore presumptively illegal. This approach has been vastly criticized in the legal doctrine for not being sufficiently clear and legally certain. Therefore, the purpose of this essay has been to critically analyze the Commission’s approach in assessing patent settlement agreements. The overall findings of the analysis do however indicate that the Commission’s categorization of pay-for-delay settlements as restrictions of competition by object follows the established rules of EU competition law and should therefore be justified.

Abstract Copyright is designed to not interfere with society's general and overriding interest of effective competition. An effective market competition benefits consumers by lowering prices, raising the quality and expands the range of goods and services. The purpose of the paper is to investigate if the collecting societies licensing violates competition laws. On the basis of the investigation regarding the bill for a new Swedish copyright law (URL), mainly the new wording that regulates the license agreement, corresponds to the EU competition rules and customs within the area. The collecting societies licensing violates the competition laws in the following cases • Discrimination of members because of nationality •           Authors transferring their sole rights to global exploitation •           The collecting society have the right to manage the rights after the author have left as a member •           Users that are established abroad do not get access to the repertoire of  the collecting societies, the same goes for concerted practice if this is the purpose or result •           Parallel behaviours that cannot be explained objectively •           Dividing the market •           Fixed Prices •           Refusal to sign multi-territorial licenses •           Apply different conditions for equivalent transactions resulting in competition disadvantages for a company that cannot be justified by reasonable causes Currently there are no indications that the new bill to a new URL violates EU law. The author of the paper thinks this may change if the collective management extends, so that other member states get the extended license agreements, then the single market is affected by the competition restriction that the new bill to the URL mean. The author of the paper thinks that the bill for a new URL should be changed so that a collective society will not get monopoly to sign licenses with extended license agreements. / Sammanfattning Upphovsrätten är utformad i syfte att inte inkräkta på samhällets generella och överordnade intresse av en effektiv konkurrens. En effektiv marknadskonkurrens gynnar konsumenterna genom att den pressar priserna, höjer kvaliteten och ökar utbudet av varor och tjänster. Syftet med uppsatsen är att utreda om upphovsrättsorganisationernas licensering strider mot konkurrenslagstiftningen. Utifrån den utredningen granskas om lagförslaget till en ny URL, framförallt den nya lydelsen som reglerar avtalslicenser, stämmer överens med EU:s konkurrensregler och praxis på området.  I följande fall strider upphovsrättsorganisations licensering mot konkurrensrätten •           Diskriminering av medlemmarna på grund av nationalitet •           Upphovsmännen överlåter sina rättigheter med ensamrätt för en global exploatering •           Upphovsrättsorganisationen har rätt att förvalta rättigheterna efter att upphovsmannen utträtt som medlem •           Användare som är etablerade utomlands får inte tillgång till upphovsrättsorganisationens repertoar, gäller även samordnade förfaranden om detta är syftet eller resultatet •           Parallella beteenden som inte kan förklaras objektivt •           Uppdelning av marknaden •           Prissamarbeten •           Vägra teckna multi-territoriella licenser •           Tillämpa olika villkor för likvärdiga transaktioner med följden att ena bolaget får en konkurrensnackdel som inte går att rättfärdiga genom sakliga skäl I nuläget finns inget som tyder på att det nya lagförslaget till en ny URL strider mot EU-rätten. Enligt uppsatsförfattarens åsikt kan detta ändras om den kollektiva förvaltningen utökas så att den får avtalslicensverkan även i andra medlemsländer varpå den inre marknaden påverkas av den konkurrensbegränsning som det nya lagförslaget till en ny URL innebär. Uppsatsförfattaren anser att lagförslaget till en ny URL bör ändras så att inte en upphovsrättsorganisation ges monopol att teckna licens med avtalslicensverkan.

Europe is facing a climate and environmental crisis. To respond to this, the European Commission has launched several programmes, which aim to increase sustainability and environmental protection. This aim has been condensed into the policy document that is the European Green Deal. The European Green Deal sets out the aim of making the Union’s economy climate neutral, while improving environmental protection and protecting biodiversity. To this end, several different sectors of the economy need to be overhauled.  In EU Law, a key policy area is to protect free competition. Article 101 TFEU sets out that agreements between undertakings which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition are prohibited. Similarly, Article 102 TFEU prohibits abuse by an undertaking of a dominant position.  This thesis explores what happens when competition law thus intersects with the environmental policy of the Union. The thesis identifies two main situations  of interaction. Undertakings can invoke environmental protection to justify a restriction of competition. The Union may also rely on its antitrust provisions to enforce sustainability by holding unsustainable practices as restrictive agreements or abuses of dominant behaviour, respectively, and thus prohibited by the antitrust provisions.  Generally, the thesis concludes that there is not enough information on how the Commission and the CJEU will approach arguments relating to sustainability in its antitrust assessment. The Commission’s consumer welfare standard appears to limit environmental integration to points where a certain factor results affects the environment or sustainability on the one hand, and consumer welfare on the other. The lack of information, moreover, is in itself an issue as undertakings may abstain from environmental action if they believe they will come under scrutiny due to violations of the antitrust provisions. Therefore, a key conclusion in the thesis is that the Commission and the CJEU should set out clear guidelines for environmental action by undertakings, in relation to the antitrust provisions. Similarly, the Commission appears to be cautious to use antitrust as a tool against unsustainable practices. The Commission has, however, recently decided to open an investigation into agreements which limit sustainability, which shows that the picture may be changing.