Interim Measures: An overview of EU and national case law

Preamble Interim measures are a tool for competition authorities to guarantee the effective enforcement of antitrust law. They ensure that, while an investigation is ongoing, no irreparable damage is caused to competition which could no longer be remedied by the decision adopted at the conclusion of the proceedings. They have been introduced in the EU legal system only with the Regulation 1/2003 [1]. Prior to that, however, the importance of interim measures had been widely recognized by the European judges that, even if without a specific legal basis, introduced them on the ground of the “effect utile” principle, acknowledging that such a principle would apply when “indispensable for the effective exercise of its functions and, in particular, for ensuring the effectiveness of any