A “useful” contribution, a “very practical” tool: on Monday 16 December, the European Commission was full of praise for the Dutch proposal to strengthen European competition rules. It suggests that the Commission should be given more clout to intervene in the event of a suspected distortion of the rules.
Investigations in case of suspicion
“The objective of the proposal is to be able to take action if a company, regardless of its nationality, distorts or threatens to distort competition in the internal market because it receives official support or has an unregulated dominant position on a third-country market”, summarises The Hague in its working document published on 9 December. In concrete terms, the Dutch government suggests that the European Commission should be allowed to intervene in cases of suspected distortion by investigating upstream (ex ante) the conduct of a company and, in particular, by studying the transparency of its accounts. Therefore, the document – which does not mention China once – recommends that foreign companies keep separate accounts for their activities in the EU and elsewhere. It also recalls a series of key principles, such as the prohibition of tied selling, by which additional conditions are imposed without any (apparent) relationship to the transaction.
The Commission is rather positive
In an article published in the Financial Times, Competition Commissioner and Vice President for Digital, Margrethe Vestager, welcomes such a contribution. She has announced her intention to review the 1997 Communication on market definition and described the Dutch tool as “very practical”. “It’s very ambitious, and it’s also quite successful”, she told the daily newspaper, adding that the deliberation was still ongoing.
When questioned by the press on Monday 16 December, the European Commission reacted publicly: “We welcome the proactive engagement of Member States in this debate”, commented spokeswoman Arianna Podesta, before her colleague Dana Spinant spoke of a “useful contribution”. Link to the Dutch document: http://bit.ly/2todBcW (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)