Under the Dutch Competition Act, certain coordination among undertakings is prohibited by the cartel regulation. However, under exceptional circumstances, coordination is necessary to achieve certain sustainability goals. This article addresses the question of to what extent the Dutch Competition Act accepts such coordination. In the Netherlands, Authority for Consumers & Markets （ACM） introduces appraisal of “Consumers’ Benefits in the Future” in order to address this issue, where future long-term benefits are also taken into account in competition law assessment. For instance, if consumers in the future benefit from coordination that restricts competition in the present, future long-term benefits may offset present harms. ACM published “Vision Document” which generally states “it may be possible that current consumers, on balance, are disadvantaged by an arrangement if that arrangement is beneficial to future consumers.” However, in two prominent informal cases, ACM was reluctant to apply this appraisal. Irrefutably, appraisal of “Consumers’ Benefits in the Future” can be acceptable theoretically, as the European Commission virtually supported the appraisal itself. However, uncertainty of future judgment suggests that it is essential to improve methods of prospective quantitative analysis in the long-term.

一橋大学大学院法学研究科

2020-07-10

Japanese(jpn)

departmental bulletin paper

VoR

10.15057/31349

1347-0388

AA1161370X

一橋法学

19

2

89

117

19巻2号(2020.7)

https://hdl.handle.net/10086/31349