Antitrust and the Making of European Tort Law
- ↵*London School of Economics and Political Science. Email: N.M.Dunne{at}lse.ac.uk.
Abstract
Efforts to develop a robust competition culture within the European Union, premised upon private enforcement of the EU competition rules, have gathered pace in recent years. This article examines the manner in which judicial innovation, coupled with legislative reinforcement, has rendered this area of primary importance in terms of the emergence of a distinct European tort law. In doing so, the article considers why this area has been singled out for such extensive vertical harmonisation, addressing this question from a variety of perspectives: those of a competition lawyer, a tort lawyer and a generalist EU lawyer. It is suggested that, while no single principled justification can explain the prioritisation of competition law in this respect, a constellation of contributory influences can be identified, including a notable comparative exemplar in the US experience, an increasingly central role for competition law within the framework of EU law more generally and, perhaps most importantly, significant institutional enthusiasm.
Key words
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