 The Intel saga: what went wrong with the Commission’s AEC test (in the General Court’s view)?Robert Lauer European Competition Journal, 2024, vol. 20, issue 1, 45-77 Abstract: The General Court’s annulment of the European Commission’s finding that Intel’s conditional rebate scheme was abusive underscores the Court’s readiness to scrutinize in detail the economic analysis, including the as-efficient competitor (AEC) test. This paper critically reviews some of the key errors that the Commission, according to the Court, made in relation to the implementation of that test, focusing on some of its main ingredients, namely the contestable share of the market, the conditional portion of the rebates, and the relevant cost benchmark. We conclude that the Court’s assessment provides useful lessons for how to perform thorough and robust economic analysis not only within the context of an AEC test but in competition cases more generally. At the same time, considering the test’s intrinsic limitations, we find that, aside from the test’s implementation, its informative value should also be explored, based on economic theory and the facts of the case. Date: 2024 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:recjxx:v:20:y:2024:i:1:p:45-77 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/17441056.2023.2242698 Access Statistics for this article European Competition Journal is currently edited by Philip Marsden More articles in European Competition Journal from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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