Milcząca koordynacja zachowań rynkowych w unijnym prawie ochrony konkurencji

Abstract

When modern antitrust systems were first taking shape, their architects envisioned "smoke-filled rooms" where competitors negotiated common market strategies. This perception influenced the conceptual framework upon which institutions designed to protect competition from coordinated conduct were built. Economic practice has demonstrated, however, that coordination among undertakings does not always result from explicit agreements to cooperate. This form of coordination is termed tacit. Initially, economists believed its occurrence was limited to markets with high concentration levels that essentially compelled market players to account for competitors' actions in their strategies. However, transformations in our economic reality mean that competition problems associated with tacit coordination are intensifying. Contributing factors include ongoing concentration processes leading to stable oligopolies, and technological progress that has transformed how firms communicate and provided new tools for analysing economic data and optimizing market strategies. This dissertation examines whether EU antitrust institutions employ concepts adequate to the ways in which undertakings coordinate their market strategies. The research focuses on the scope of application of EU competition law institutions to anticompetitive effects resulting from tacitly coordinated conduct. The research has demonstrated that legal instruments functioning outside the EU legal order can supplement gaps in application of basic competition law institutions. Solutions at the intersection of antitrust law and market regulation appear particularly significant for changing how EU competition rules relate to this phenomenon. Given the growing importance of these issues in competition protection, their introduction at the EU level appears to be the right direction.