The development of British competition law. A complete overhaul and harmonization

EC Regulations in the field of competition law

By the 1980s there were in place a substantial number of Council and EC

Commission Regulations providing for the detailed application of the relevant Treaty

provisions, including –

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procedural regulations that entrusted the enforcement of the Treaty provisions

as public law primarily to the EC Commission, regulated its procedures and

gave it power to impose potentially large penalties on undertakings that

infringed the rules;

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exempting regulations that create block exemptions from the prohibition

imposed by Article 85 (1) for entire classes of agreements that satisfy

specified conditions and that thus supplement the EC Commission’s power to

grant individual exemptions under Article 85 (3).