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Publishers Abstract:
A timely question of both theoretical and practical importance is the relationship between private antitrust enforcement, at the level of national (civil) courts, and public antitrust enforcement, at the level of the European Commission. The whole question has two main angles: a competition law-specific one, i.e. whether there is or should be a primacy of public over private antitrust enforcement or whether the two are or should be independent; and a Community law-specific one, i.e. whether the supranational nature of the Community law system means that there is a hierarchical relationship between European Commission administrative proceedings/decisions and national court proceedings/judgments. The current principle of supremacy, as established in Masterfoods and taken up by Article 16(1) of Regulation 1/2003, and the negative duty of national courts 'not to contradict' Commission decisions is an appropriate safeguard ensuring that the Community supranational system of competition law enforcement works well.
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