Paper Titles & Abstracts

It is commonly known that the competition law cases at European level are dealt with rather in the way of direct action. Nevertheless, it is equally common presumption that - considering the strict requirements under Article 263.4 TFEU - the preliminary ruling procedure has developed to be the main channel for individuals to enforce their rights conferred by the European legislation. These two roads cross, when it comes to the enforcement of competition rules at the EU level after the entry into force of Council Regulation (EC) 1/2003. Competition rules may be relied on by companies and individuals before national courts, what means that national courts are responsible for implementing Articles 101 and 102 TFEU and seeking interpretation from the CJEU. It should be, however, kept in mind in that context that in practice the national court can expect to wait around 20 months for an answer to its questions. Various suggestions have been made over the years as to how the preliminary ruling procedure might be improved, including, inter alia, limiting the national courts empowered to make references (e.g. excluding national courts of first instance) and the introduction of a filtering system. Having this in mind, the paper analyses the specifics of use of the preliminary ruling procedure within the field of competition law (II). It further discusses the variations in frequency of references between the different Member States (III) and, subsequently, looks at the length of procedure from the perspective of fundamental rights protection (IV). In particular the analyses will focus on the guarantee for an effective access to justice/court within the field of European competition law in the light of the amendments introduced late 2012 by the Rules of Procedure.