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The “Essential Facilities” Doctrine in EC Competition Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 1999

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Extract

In Oscar Bronner GmbH & Co. KG v. Mediaprint Zeitungs- und Zeitschriftenverlag GmbH & Co. KG and others (Case C-7/97, [1999] 4 C.M.L.R. 112), the European Court of Justice has clarified the scope of the application of the “essential facilities” doctrine to EC competition law. The Commission defined an “essential facility” as a “facility or infrastructure without access to which competitors cannot provide services to their customers” (B&I Line plc v. Sealink Harbours Ltd., Commission Decision of 11 June 1992, [1992] 5 C.M.L.R. 255 at paragraph 41). Under the doctrine, a dominant undertaking that owns or controls such a facility and refuses, without an objective justification, to make it available to competitors—or makes it available on discriminatory terms—abuses its position of dominance.

Type
Case and Comment
Copyright
Copyright © The Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors, 1999

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