The Design of Competition Policy Institutions for the 21st Century—The Experience of the European Commission and DG Competition

All competition policy and enforcement systems consist of essentially two components: the legal instruments (‘rules’) governing both substance, competences and procedure, and the administrative structures and processes through which the legal instruments are implemented. Each of these is necessary for the success of the system as a whole. Good rules remain a dead letter if there is no efficiently run organisation with the processes to implement them. Conversely an efficiently managed authority cannot compensate for fundamental flaws in the rules which it is to implement.