Addressing the legitimacy problem for competition authorities taking into account non-economic values: the position of the Dutch Competition Authority

Publishers Abstract
This article explores a specific issue, the 'legitimacy problem', in the discussion of whether or not competition authorities in the EU should, in their competition law assessment of co-operation between companies, include a weighing of non-competition elements, such as concerns for a sustainable society.

The problem is that decisions in which competition authorities undertake such a weighing of competition values and non-competition values may lack legitimacy; the article addresses it by introducing ideas for enhancing democratic legitimacy, after introducing more fully the underlying discussion of the goals of European and national competition law and the notion of legitimacy, and how this relates to the weighing of non-economic values by competition authorities. This general discussion is not limited to the situation in the Netherlands, although this article then focuses on the institutional setting of the Dutch competition authority. This will ground the general exploration in a specific practice.

The goal of this article is thus to explore whether a counter-argument to the legitimacy problem can be formulated.

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