Damien Geradin, Professor of Competition Law and Economics, Tilburg University; and William W. Cook Global Law Professor, University of Michigan Law School.

In recent years, large US corporations, such as Microsoft and Intel,  have seen some of their commercial practices condemned by the Commission on the ground they were anti-competitive. They also faced fines running in the hundreds of millions of Euros. These decisions, which may appear unnecessarily harsh, have been met with concern by US commentators, some of whom argued that the Commission uses competition law to achieve protectionist goals. Moreover, many found the EU procedural framework inadequate as given insufficient attention to due process, at least compared to the guarantees offered to defendants in US-style proceedings. This talk will discuss whether these criticisms are justified and to the extent they are what needs to be done to improve the EU competition law enforcement system.