8 Horizontal Mergers—Coordinated Effects
From: EU Merger Control: A Legal and Economic Analysis
Ioannis Kokkoris, Howard Shelanski
- Subject(s):
- Merger control — Coordinated effects — Conglomerate effects — Article 101 TFEU — Cartels — Article 102 TFEU — Dominant position — Fines/Penalties — Collective or joint dominance — Substantive assessment
8.01 Coordinated effects (or ‘collective dominance’ as was this theory of harm named pursuant to Regulation 4064/89 and in case law before 2004) occur in highly concentrated markets with a small number of players who recognize their interdependence and the futility of aggressive competitive behaviour. As a result, market structures are conducive to tacit coordination.1 The main feature of oligopoly is the existence of a sustainable mechanism of coordination of behaviour that may lead to parallelism of prices and capacity.2 In an oligopolistic market there are a...
