The Historical Foundations of EU Competition Law

Shedding new light on the foundations of European competition law, this volume is a legal and historical study of the emerging law and its evolution through the 1980s. It retraces the development and critical junctures of competition law not only at the level of the European Economic Community but also at the level of major Member States of the EEC. Intensely researched and rich with insights, the chapters in this volume reflect a close collaboration among an expert group of lawyers and historians and capitalize on previously unavailable source materials.

The book examines several key themes including: the influence of national and international competition law on the development of EEC competition law; the drafting of the regulations that lead to the development of modern EU competition law; the role of the European Court of Justice in establishing the protection of competition as a central pillar of the Common Market; the internal dynamics, ideologies and tensions within the Competition Directorate General (DG IV) of the European Commission; and the role of industrial policy in European integration.

Combining legal analysis with a meticulous excavation of historical evidence to reveal the forces driving key actors and the interactions among them, this volume rediscovers a past largely forgotten but essential to understanding the genesis of competition law in Europe, its role in Europe's construction, its hybrid institutional traits, and its often unique substance.