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Publishers Abstract:
Administrative fines continue to be the European Commission's principal tool in the fight against cartels and other serious infringements of the EC competition rules. But as the Commission's fines have increased steadily over the last decades, so too have the demands for greater transparency of its fining policy. In June 2006, the Commission published the successor to the 1998 Guidelines: the 'Guidelines on the method of setting fines imposed on undertakings which infringe Articles 81 and/or 82 EC' (hereinafter the '2006 Guidelines' or simply 'Guidelines'). A detailed assessment of the 2006 Guidelines will only be possible once it becomes clearer how the Commission will apply them in practice. In conclusion, the 2006 Fining Guidelines have addressed some of the 1998 Guidelines' shortcomings, but have created a host of new issues that the Commission and courts must address in future decisions.
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