Commitments and Network Governance in EU Antitrust: Gasorba

By Stavros Makris & Alexandre Ruiz Feases(European University Institute)

To what extent can a national competition authority or a national court find a competition law infringement in a case already subjected to commitments of the European Commission? This is one of the questions that lie at the heart of the controversy in Gasorba. This case provided the ECJ with the opportunity to clarify the legal nature and effects of commitments in EU competition law. In this case note, we analyse the preliminary ruling of the ECJ and we argue that, apart from clarifying the legal nature of commitments, the ECJ strikes a dynamic balance between public and private enforcement. Moreover, far from undermining the principle of legal certainty and generating coordination failures, we claim that Gasorba allows for ‘modest experimentalism’ in EU antitrust enforcement and ‘regulatory conversations’ between enforcers.

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