THE PROPOSED INTRODUCTION OF MARKET-BASED MECHANISMS 313 under Article 101 or, if they are considered to be more concentrated in nature, the merger Regulation8. With this background, and bearing in mind the text of the Law, it is easy to conclude that the definition of the market itself is extremely difficult, which leads to highly predictable problems. Secondly, we have a lengthy, costly and time-consuming procedure to enforce competition rules. However, this scenario slightly improved in 2004 with the introduction of national competence to investigate anticompetitive behaviours throughout national competition authorities (NCAs) of EU Member States. Therefore, along with the European Commission and its broad investigative powers, such as the ability to carry out unannounced inspections at companies’ premises or to compel companies to provide evidence relevant to its investigations, NCAs have appeared and done a great job investigating these behaviours. The actual structure can be seen in Figure 2 below. Figure 2: Design of competition authorities Source: Adapted from Enforcement of EU competition policy – Information on a forthcoming audit (2018) The Commission’s decision-making powers in enforcing EU competition rules are specific to each of the three main areas of competition: • Antitrust: The Commission can prohibit anticompetitive conduct, impose substantial fines of up to 10% of the annual turnover of the concerned companies, and impose any other conditions on companies that it considers necessary to restore effective competition in the Single Market. 8 Council Regulation (EEC) No 4064/89 of 21 December 1989 on the control of concentrations between undertakings.
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