The purpose of this article is to examine the question to what extent private undertakings can be immunized from European competition law responsibility by relying on influence exerted on them by regulatory or non-regulatory Member State actions. Hereafter, I will use the term “State action defence”. It is very important to distinguish this issue from the question of the Member State responsibility for the above actions. Such responsibility, based on Articles 3, 10 and 81/82 of the EC-Treaty, will only briefly be mentioned in this article in so far as necessary for the purposes of discussion.
World Competition