Pietro Manzini � News

Slides of the European antitrust law course

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 16:34:46 +0100

The slides of the course can be found on a Google drive accessible trough the link you will find in the 'Useful contents' section, on this page.

Exam correction method

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 12:55:56 +0200

For each of the following eight questions only one answer is correct. A different answer is incorrect but plausible. Two other answers are wrong. For each correct answer you will get 4 points. For an incorrect but plausible answer you will get 2 points. One point shall be awarded in the event of a wrong answer.

Professor Manzini will not consider any dispute concerning the definitions of ‘correct’, ‘incorrect but plausible’ and ‘wrong’ answer.

Examples of the correction method

In case of all 8 correct answers (4 x 8 = 32), you will get 30 cum laude

In case of 7/8 correct answers you will get 30 if the remaining answer is ‘incorrect but plausible’ (28+2) or 29, if it is wrong (28+1).

In case of 6/8 correct answers you will get 28 if the 2 remaining answers are ‘incorrect but plausible’ (24+2+2) or you will get 27 if one of the remaining answer is ‘incorrect but plausible’ and one is wrong (24+2+1) or you will get 26 if both remaining answers are wrong (24+1+1)

Etc.

European antitrust law - Exam example

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 12:53:46 +0200

QUESTION 1

“42 In the second place, as regards the participation of the travel agencies concerned in a concerted practice within the meaning of Article 101(1) TFEU, it must be recalled, first, that under that provision, the concept of a concerted practice implies (…)

43 Secondly, it must be pointed out that the case at issue in the main proceedings, as presented by the referring court, is characterised by the fact that the administrator of the information system at issue sent a message concerning a common anticompetitive action to the travel agencies participating in that system, a message which could only be consulted in the ‘Notices’ section of the information system in question and to which those agencies did not expressly respond. Following the dispatch of that message, a technical restriction was implemented which limited the discounts that could be applied to bookings made via that system to 3%. Although that restriction did not prevent the travel agencies concerned from granting discounts greater than 3% to their customers, it nevertheless required them to take additional technical steps in order to do so”.

The conduct described at point 43:

does not amount in a concerted practice since the travel agencies could in any case grant a discount greater than 3%.
does not amount in a concerted practice since a participation in a concertation cannot be inferred from the mere existence of a technical restriction implemented in the system
could amount in a concerted practice if it were proved that travel agencies concerned responded to the message at least implicitly
could amount in a concerted practice if it were proved that the travel agencies were aware of the content of that message.