State of Competition

April 15, 2026 In Antitrust, Competition Enforcement, Europe, Innovation By Dr. Valentin Mircea

Approving the Giant, Litigating the Conduct: The Hindsight of EU Merger Control

On Meta/WhatsApp, the AI access dispute, and a decade of optimistic clearances now corrected through Article 102 I. A second charge sheet, twelve years late Earlier this week, the European Commission sent Meta a fresh Statement of Objections in the WhatsApp/AI access investigation matter. The document is...

March 19, 2026 In Cases and Decisions, Cases and Decisions By Dr. Valentin Mircea

Culmea înțelegerilor anticoncurențiale: operatori de arhivă obligați să lucreze sub costuri, acuzați că ar profita de asta

Există situații în care realitatea depășește orice fantezie. Cazul operatorilor de servicii arhivistice din România este una dintre ele — o succesiune de trei lovituri pe care Statul le-a dat unor întreprinderi private cărora le ceruse mai întâi, tot el, să preia o obligație publică...

March 16, 2026 In Cases and Decisions, Cases and Decisions, Innovation By Dr. Valentin Mircea

Adevărata poveste a investigației Consiliului Concurenței pe piața distribuției de semințe de cultură și pe piața de distribuție a pesticidelor Sau cum se transformă un leu în pisicuță și de ce contează

Există investigații ale Consiliului Concurenței care, privite din exterior, ridică mai multe întrebări decât răspunsuri. Nu neapărat despre vinovăție sau nevinovăție — aceasta este o chestiune de probă și de drept, care se va tranșa în timp. Ci despre altceva: despre logica instituțională a unei autorități publice...

March 10, 2026 In Innovation By Dr. Valentin Mircea

Beyond the Innovation Mantra: What if Competition Law Should Pursue More Than Creative Destruction? Reflections after Philippe Aghion’s keynote at the OECD Competition Open Day, 4 March 2026

On 4 March 2026, at the OECD Competition Open Day in Paris, I followed Philippe Aghion – the 2025 Nobel laureate in economics – delivering the keynote speech that opened the eighth edition of this flagship event. The message was, in essence, familiar: competition drives...

November 2, 2024 In Antitrust, Cases and Decisions, Cases and Decisions, Competition Enforcement, Uncategorized By Dr. Valentin Mircea

Nu a existat un cartel al editurilor

Unul din cele mai mediatizate cazuri din istoria Consiliului Concurenței - sancțiunile aplicate câtorva edituri și două mari lanțuri de librării - are toate indicațiile unei erori de apreciere, unei erori de standard de probă și, nu în ultimul rând, a unei erori privind consecințele...

August 14, 2022 In Cases and Decisions By Dr. Valentin Mircea

The worst cartel

The word ”cartel” in itself has automatically a negative connotation, for good reasons. People associate this word with one of the worst wrongdoings in business, which annuls the competition on the merits, able to maximise efficiency, and so it affects consumers. Perhaps the best known cartels...

August 8, 2022 In Antitrust, Cases and Decisions By Dr. Valentin Mircea

My plea for an EU Competition Tribunal

The scope of this contribution is to argue that the enforcement of the European Union competition rules requires a significant overhaul with respect to the judicial phase of this process. Since the first years of the European Communities the enforcement of the competition rules has been...

November 17, 2021 In Antitrust, Books By Dr. Valentin Mircea

New Release: Eleanor M. Fox Liber Amicorum – Antitrust Ambassador to the World

Pioneer, avant-garde, transformationalist - Eleanor M. Fox is regularly described in these terms by the manifold antitrust practitioners who have been influenced by her industry-shaping scholarly work. Over the course of an extraordinary career, she has helped establish a coherent set of competition law and...

November 10, 2021 In Antitrust, Cases and Decisions By Dr. Valentin Mircea

Google Shopping at the General Court – a decision without teeth

Some consideration on the ”fresh” (so-to-speak, for a case initiated in 2009) Google Shopping case at the General Court of the European Union, which ”largely dismisses” the request for annulment lodged by Google - but not all of it. Due to the fact that it...

November 3, 2021 In Innovation, Legislation, Uncategorized By Dr. Valentin Mircea

A monster in the making?

The European Union's Digital Markets Act is advancing - at slow pace - through the intricate legislative process of the European Union but behind this process there is an epic battle for the control of the revenue streams in the digital economy. This battle has very...