Mini-Reviews of Important European Competition Law Publications

• Author: Josh Holmes,Valentine Korah
• Published date: 01 March 2004
• Date: 01 March 2004
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0003603X0404900111
• Subject Matter: Book Review

The Antitrust Bulletin/Spring-Summer 2004 435

Mini-reviews

of

important European

competition law publications

BY JOSH HOLMES* and VALENTINE KORAH**

European

cornpetrtron

law

is

altering

very

fast

and

now

occasionally comes within the jurisdiction of courts in the United

States. Many universities now provide comparative competition

courses covering European Community (EC) law and many U.S.

clients carry on business in Europe. So, it occurred to Valentine

that a collection

of

short reviews, not limited to books, might be

useful for lawyers compiling aminimum EC competition library.

All

the

works

reviewed

here are

highly

competent,

accurate,

include comment on controversial issues and would be found on

or close to the desks of most European competition law experts.

Many firms also subscribe to law reports, and they are available

in many university libraries. The recent judgments and decisions

can

be

found

on

the

Internet,

but

without

annotations

or

headnotes. The practitioner works and textbooks generally cover

articles 81 and 82, merger control and enforcement. Some go

further and include state aids, antidumping and special sectors

of

the economy.

There are too many works for one lawyer to review, so we

have

divided

the

task

between

us,

and

the

initials

JH or

VK

appear below each review to indicate its author.

*Lecturer in Law at University College London; Legal Secretary to

Advocate General Jacobs at the European Court of Justice.

** Professor Emeritus of Competition Law, University College Lon-

don, and Visiting Professor at Fordham Law School.

©2004 by Federal Legal Publications, Inc.

436

The antitrust bulletin

Practitioner works

C. Bellamy &G. Child, European Community Law

of

Competition, 5th

edition, edited by P. M. Roth QC (Sweet &Maxwell, 2001), clxiii +

1339

pages.

A

6th

edition

is

being

planned,

but

is

unlikely

to be

published for several years.

This is the work to which most U.K. practitioners habitually

turn first. The fifth edition is more critical than its predecessors.

The writing by many friends and colleagues of the editor is lucid,

perceptive and extremely accurate. The footnotes are very helpful

and more is said than one might think possible in under 1400

pages.

A

substantial

amount

of

material

relates

to

state

aid,

control

of

regulated industries and other special sectors.

VK

Jonathan Faull &Ali Nikpay, editors, The EC

Law

of

Competition, 1st

edition

(Oxford

University

Press,

1999),

cxviii

+961

pages.

A 2d

edition expected shortly.

The particular and unique appeal of this work lies in the fact

that its authors are all officials at DG Competition, the department

of the Commission charged with competition matters. Unsurprisingly,

therefore, it is very widely consulted by practitioners in the field

and greatly appreciated for the consistent quality and depth of its

analysis.

Each chapter is the work

of

different hands, selected according

to

their

expertise.

It

begins

with

an

analysis

of

the

general

principles,

which

includes

a

stimulating

introduction

to

competition economics and an excellent discussion

of

the rules

relating to anticompetitive state measures. The remaining two-

thirds

of

the book are devoted to specific practices and various

special sectors. The sectoral studies are

of

aparticularly high

quality

and

are

dealt

with

more

thoroughly

than

in

the

other

single-volume practitioner works.

The current edition is now 4 years old, but a new edition is in

the advanced stages of planning. JH