Since the internet revolution, and with the ever-growing presence of the internet in our everyday lives, being able to control as much data as possible has become an indispensable part of any business looking to succeed on digital markets. This is where Big Data has become crucial. Being able to gather, but more importantly process and understand data, has allowed companies to tailor their services according to the unspoken wants of the consumer as well as optimize ad sales according to consumers’ online patterns. Considering the significant power over digital markets possessed by certain companies, it becomes critical to examine such companies from a competition law perspective. Refusal to supply, which is an abuse of a dominant position according to Article 102 TFEU, can be used to compel abusive undertakings to share a product or service, which they alone possess, and which is indispensable input in another product, with competitors. This is otherwise known as the Essential Facilities Doctrine. If the Big Data used by attention platforms such as Facebook or Google were to be considered such an indispensable product, these undertakings would be required to share Big Data with competitors. While Big Data enables the dominant positions held by powerful attention platforms today, there are certain aspects of it and its particular uses by such platforms that do not allow for the application of the Essential Facilities Doctrine. Considering the significance of Big Data for these undertakings, however, there may be need for a reform of the Essential Facilities Doctrine. From a purely competition standpoint, allowing the application of the Essential Facilities Doctrine to Big Data would be beneficial, particularly considering the doctrine’s effect on innovation. However, enforcing an obligation to share Big Data with competitors would be in breach of privacy policies within the EU. While competition decisions made by the Commission do not directly concern rules set forth in such policies, the Commission is still obligated to respect the right to privacy set forth in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Thus, while the significance of Big Data demands a change in how it is approached by competition law, the Essential Facilities Doctrine is not the appropriate remedy.

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.

This thesis investigates competition law, State aid law and free-movement law in their interaction with Article 11 TFEU’s obligation to integrate environmental protection requirements into all activities and policies of the Union. The Article is formulated in broad and sweeping terms which makes integrating environmental protection requirements complex and context-dependent. The challenge of integrating environmental considerations is further increased as such integration in competition, State aid and free- movement law is different from other areas of EU action. The three areas are the core provisions protecting the internal market by prohibiting certain actions of the Member States and undertakings. Unlike in other areas, the EU is therefore not in the position to develop or design the actions but has to scrutinise the measure according to pre-established parameters. To address this challenge, a novel functional approach to environmental integration is developed. The approach should facilitate a better understanding of environmental integration and in particular its application to competition law, State aid and free-movement law. An important element of this thesis equally the comparison between the three areas of law. It sheds light on conceptual issues that are not only relevant to the integration of environmental protection. The comparison advances the understanding in relation to questions such as how restrictions are defined and how the respective balancing tests are applied. The contribution of this research is therefore twofold. One the one hand, it compares how the different tests in competition, State aid and free-movement law operate, thereby offering opportunities for cross-fertilisation. On the other hand, this comparison and the improvements suggested as a result help to conceptualise environmental integration thereby paving the way for a more transparent and consistent integration of environmental protection in competition, State aid and free-movement law.

Block Exemptions represent means of exemption from the prohibition of restrictive agreements set by the Article 101 (1) TFEU. The main aim of my thesis is to analyze and describe the development of an approach to block exemptions and to present how the block exemptions work in practice. Generally, block exemptions are issued in the form of Block Exemption Regulations according to Article 101 (3) TFEU. The wording of this provision specifies the conditions under which certain types of agreements may be exempted from the prohibition set by Article 101 (1) TFEU. Regulations are issued by the Council or by the Commission, which is more often. If an agreement accomplishes the criteria laid down in a block exemption regulation, there is no need to notify that agreement individually because the agreement is automatically valid and effective. The thesis is composed of six chapters. The first two chapters are introductory. Chapter One refers to the protection of competition in general. Subsequently, Chapter Two deals with main exemptions from the prohibition of restrictive agreements, such as agreements exempted from the prohibition under Article 101 (3) TFEU or the de minimis rule of exemption from the prohibition. Chapter Three, which is subdivided into three parts, explains the development of the...

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.

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The topic of the thesis are CILFIT criterions. These criterions were established by the Court of Justice of the European Union as conditions for application of the acte clair doctrine by national courts of last resort. The conditions determine situations in which such a court does not have an obligation under Article 267/3 to bring a matter before the Court of Justice. First of all, thesis describes the historical circumstances, which gave rise to the CILFIT case as well as the facts of that issue. Then it analyses one by one CILFIT criterions and also current procedure of submitting preliminary questions as a whole. As a part of the analysis, it focuses on the practical application of the abovementioned conditions by the courts of the Member States. It targets purely theoretical ideas too. The thesis, further, identifies certain problematic aspects of the CILFIT conditions. Subsequently, some possible solutions are being suggested and their effectiveness and appropriateness are being examined.

This thesis investigated the influence imbalance between worker’s and employer’s interest in the EU policymaking. It is assumed that worker’s interests are disadvantaged, and this study is therefore examining the consultation of social partners under article 154 TFEU that considers social policy and can be used as a most-likely case for worker’s influence.The study is conducted by identifying conflicts between ETUC and BusinessEurope in their consultation replies and compare the different opinions with the Commission’s legislative proposal to find out which organisation that succeeded in influencing the Commission within each conflict.The results from this shows that each consultation generated between 0 to 6 conflicts and that most of the conflicts were won by BusinessEurope. This strengthens the assumption that there is an influence imbalance in EU legislation that makes the employer’s organisation BusinessEurope more influential than the trade unions ETUC.

No other markets have likely ever been as closely part of our everyday lives as digital markets have. Digital markets can be described as a place for innovation where new products, services, and companies pop up on a nearly daily basis. These markets can at the same time be described as highly concentrated, in the hands of a few, who control the market, and make the rules on the market. It is without a question that digital markets are full of possibilities for innovative companies and therefore it is of such importance that these markets are protected and kept as fair, competitive, and transparent as possible. There have been concerns whether the existing competition law is the best tool to be used on digital markets and whether the often-lenghty process of Article 102 TFEU can, or at least effectively can, control these gatekeepers controlling digital markets. The purpose of the thesis is therefore to analyse the existing and new theories of harm when it comes to Article 102 TFEU and whether they could be useful in the Commissions' ongoing investigations against these gatekeepers. As existing theories of harm margin squeeze, unfair contractual terms and conditions as well as tying will be analysed and their applicability in the digital markets. While some conducts might fall under the existing theories of harm others won't and thereof it is worth looking into new theories of harm such as self-preferencing, forced free riding, and privacy policy tying, in order to determine whether they could be used by the Commission.  While the application of Article 102 TFEU is of great importance, the Commission has also drafted a proposal called Digital Markets Act which would be an ex-ante tool to be used alongside EU competition law and which could help address the problems the current competition law isn't at least effectively addressing. The Digital Markets Act is based on certain undertakings when fulfilling the criterium, being defined as gatekeepers, and when defined as such, the obligations of the Digital Markets Act become applicable. This would offer the Commission a tool that is likely more efficient and legally certain than the application of Article 102 TFEU. Since the existing competition law hasn't been able to prevent digital markets becoming even more and more concentrated, the Digital Markets Act might be exactly what is needed in order to secure the internal market remaining competitive, fair, contestable, and transparent.

1 Relocation as a Solution to the EU Migration Crisis Abstract Asylum law has traditionally been perceived as a sensitive area of state policy. For this very reason, for a long time, it was mostly excluded from the process of European integration. However, the development of the internal market and the removal of internal borders have ultimately necessitated some degree of harmonisation of asylum and migration policies amongst the Member States. Consequently, there have been several major increases in EU competence in the field of asylum and migration since the 1990s. This has eventually led to the creation of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). Yet, a prolonged lack of political will to introduce a major reform of the CEAS and to duly implement the principle of solidarity has over the years resulted in serious systemic deficiencies. These defects, in particular the uneven distribution of responsibility between the Member States, have fully shown during the EU migration crisis. This far-reaching crisis has translated into several ad hoc solutions, including the use of an emergency EU competence to adopt temporary measures under Art. 78(3) SFEU (ex Art. 64(2) TEC), which had not been used until then. The adoption of two Council relocation decisions in September 2015 has raised numerous legal questions...