Defining Legitimate Competition: Companies' Duties to Supply Competitors and Access to Essential Facilities

This Article considers the European Community (“Community” or “EC”) antitrust law rules on the duty to supply competitors with important goods or services. It is convenient to begin, in Part I of this Article, by summarizing the relevant Treaty provisions, and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities (the “Court”) and the Commission of the European Communities (the “Commission”) on essential facilities. Part I begins with the less specialized cases, and outlines the Court and Commission cases on telecommunications and performing rights societies, as well as some relevant Community legislation. This provides the basis for a discussion of the general principles and problems in Part II of this Article.

Part II is a synthesis, based on the principle that a dominant company has, at least in some cases, a duty to supply, if refusal will cause a significant effect on competition.