The seminar will discuss recent developments in European and national competition cases involving restrictive agreements, including vertical agreements such as distribution agreements with restrictions on online sales. It will explore open questions and broader trends in European competition law and their effects on restrictive agreements cases, with an emphasis on the influence of economic concepts on case analysis, debates about policy goals and their impact on case outcomes, and the effects of all this on private enforcement before national courts. We will use the seminar to explore several unanswered questions that are likely to come up before national courts, including what type of restrictions can be presumed to be harmful, when restrictions can be considered “objectively justified,” the role of economic analysis in cases involving territorial restraints, the evaluation of evidence to assess anticompetitive effects and efficiencies, and the role of economic experts.
