Get in touch with the authors !
Home > The Review > N° 4-2005
N° 4-2005
Third parties rights in competition proceedings before the EC Commission
ARTICLE: EC antitrust and merger proceedings - European Commission - Interested parties - Third parties - natural and legal persons - Rights of defence - Case law of the European Court of Justice and Tribunal of First instance
Three categories of actors coexist in most antitrust and merger proceedings before the European Commission. The principal ones are the Commission and the companies which are the subjects of its investigation and which may receive its objections. For this reason, the companies benefit from subjective rights and in particular from rights of defence. However, there is also a variety of other natural and legal persons with a role in the proceedings. These are the interested third parties, the complainants and other interested parties in merger proceedings. The analysis of their legal status is not yet perfectly complete nor sufficiently clear. This paper discusses the role of third parties and aims to shed some light on their legal position. More specifically, it argues that third parties possess genuine subjective rights, but also that these rights derive primarily from their significance to the procedure. The paper draws the legal community’s attention to the fact that the contribution of third parties in achieving the best possible decision in each competition case is often significant, and sometimes determinant. Moreover, nowadays their influence is on the rise. This trend, largely originating in the case law of the European Courts, is expected to continue and to grow in the future.Author(s) :
Language : français
Date of publication : January 2006
Citation : Serge Durande, Aitor Montesa Lloreda, Third parties rights in competition proceedings before the EC Commission, Concurrences, N° 4-2005, n°455, pp. 34-44.
