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I. Herrera Anchustegui — Buyer Power in EU Competition Law ix

FOREWORD

It is no exaggeration for Dr Herrera Anchustegui to say that, for the longest time and in the context of legal analysis, “buyer power has mostly been identified with monop-sony power and simplified by assuming that its treatment should be symmetrical to, or the ‘mirror image’ of seller side cases, or opting for simplifications of the topic.” However, it is a touch more challenging and may raise an eyebrow or two to claim that “treating buyer power fully economically and symmetrical to monopoly power is not the correct approach, nor is the way in which the Courts apply the law to it.” The reader should, however, rest assured that Dr Herrera Anchustegui does not reach such critical conclusion on a whim, but rather as the result of a conscientious and minute analysis of virtually every case involving issues of buyer power under EU competition law.

In this book, Dr Herrera Anchustegui embarks on an ordoliberal and economically informed investigation of the treatment of buyer power in EU competition law with the aim of gaining a holistic view of both the concept and the policy interventions that emerge from past practice across all relevant areas of EU competition law: i.e. anticompetitive behaviour, abuse of dominance and merger control. The reader that follows him in this less than easy journey will be richly rewarded. The research in this book covers a gap in the literature that probably was not perceived as such because of the long shadow of the ‘mirror image’ mantra and the impression that buyer power issues were, by and large, a peculiar challenge of the supermarkets and agricultural sectors. Beyond those, and possibly one or two examples from regulated industries, even the most knowledgeable scholars and practitioners would need to rack their brains to recall contexts or cases where the competition law analysis rested on theo-ries of harm built upon the exercise of buying power. They would probably also be surprised to read that Dr Herrera Anchustegui does not consider most of these cases to raise a proper competition law issue, and would (in keeping with his ordoliberal approach) rather redirect them to other areas of regulation of economic activity of a contractual nature. Therefore, this book offers the specialists an opportunity to reas-sess the received wisdom on the treatment of buyer power under EU competition law. It also offers readers approaching the topic for the first time an authoritative guide to navigate a difficult and, until now, relatively untrodden territory.

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The book has many strengths, but also a curse for the author. One of its main strengths is that it lays out, in terms accessible to non-economists, a clear microeconomic un-derstanding of the issues and challenges implicit in the design of a competition policy around buyer power. This is useful because it goes well-beyond the ‘mirror image’ mantra and makes the not minor effort of importing to the legal arena developments in industrial organisation research that can support a more nuanced approach to buyer power from a legal perspective. Another of the main strengths of the book is that it offers the reader insights at two different levels. At a micro level, the detailed assess-ment of cases on the basis of a clearly specified economic model offers new insights on past decisions and their implications. At a macro level, the study as a whole results in a valuable synthesis of concepts and regulatory interventions across the span of EU competition law and policy. Thus, the book gives the reader an opportunity to get both a good perspective on the topic and in-depth analysis of specific cases, which makes it equally relevant for scholars and practitioners.

A final strength I would stress is that the book is encyclopaedic and comprehensive, and that its structure, based on a functional approach to the exercise of buying power, is such as to allow it to grow in the future and over several further editions that incor-porate future developments in law and policy. This places it in an exceptional position to become a reference point for scholars and practitioners active in competition law. Which brings me to the curse for the author. Given that this is an area that promises to continue expanding in the future, and that this study will help fuel a more vigorous enforcement of competition law in cases involving the exercise of buying power (in particular in non-consumer-facing markets), it seems that this book is not solely the pinnacle of a brilliant doctoral project, but also the start of a never-ending academic endeavour to influence, evaluate and reconsider law and policy in this area– to which Dr Herrera Anchustegui would do well to dedicate a significant part of his career. That said, volenti non fit iniuria.

Dr Albert Sánchez-Graells Reader in Economic Law

University of Bristol Law School

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Tables of Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Table of Cases, Opinions and Decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv

Table of European Commission’s Soft Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxvii

Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxix

Table of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxi

PART I: INTRODUCTION & METHODOLOGY. . . . . . . . 1

I. Object of the study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3A. Research questions and structure of this study . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

B. Analysis structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

II. Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11A. An economically informed legal analysis for buyer power . . . . . 11

B. The use of economic theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

C. Comparing buyer power regulation with ordoliberal competition policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

D. The legal analysis, a doctrinal work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

E. Citation and nomenclature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

III. Project justification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

IV. Delimitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

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PART II: BUYER POWER ECONOMICS AND ORDOLIBERAL BUYER POWER POLICY . . 23

2. Buyer power: Monopsony and Bargaining Power, an economic approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

II. Buyer power as an umbrella term for competition risks . . . . . . . . . 27

III. Monopsony, the model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32A. Isolation’s supermarket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

B. The conditions for monopsony power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

a. A sole buyer – or a group of a few buyers – with substantial market power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

b. An upward sloping supply curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

c. The supply curve must be inelastic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

d. The existence of economic rents that can be extracted by the monopsonist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

e. Entry barriers to the buyer’s side of the market . . . . . . . . 40

C. Is monopsony power a problem likely to arise in practice? . . . . 41

IV. Bargaining power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42A. Distinguishing bargaining power from monopsony. . . . . . . . . 47

B. Sources of bargaining power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

a. Buyer’s size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

b. Alternative sources of supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

c. Alternative sources of demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

d. Bargaining effectiveness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

V. Direct buyer power effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51A. Monopsony effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

a. Monopsonist with upstream and downstream market power . 54

b. Monopsony and no substantial market power downstream . . 58

B. Bargaining power effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

a. Buyer with bargaining power and facing a downstream competitive market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

b. Buyer with bargaining power and downstream market power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

VI. Indirect buyer power effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63A. The waterbed effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

B. The anti-waterbed effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

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C. How should the waterbed effect be approached? . . . . . . . . . . 68

D. Buyer power effects on investment, innovation and dynamic efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

E. Buyer power effects on quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

F. Buyer power effects on market concentration: variety and exclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

VII. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

3. Buyer Power through an Ordoliberal Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

II. Ordoliberalism in a nutshell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

III. Competition in an ordoliberal perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83A. Understanding ordoliberal competition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

a. Competition and economic freedom as goals themselves. . . 87

b. Protecting competition as a process as economically efficient 89

B. Types of ordoliberal competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

C. Competition as if? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

D. Ordoliberalism, use of economics and the ‘more economic approach’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

E. The role of the state: limited role for administrative discretion . . 97

IV. Buyer power policy from an ordoliberal perspective . . . . . . . . . . 99A. Need for buyer power specific regulation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

B. A differentiated general treatment for buyer power. . . . . . . . 100

C. Which welfare standard and which kind of harm triggers competition intervention in buyer power cases? . . . . . . . . . 102

a. Which type of harm is needed to trigger the application of competition law? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

D. Freedom to compete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

E. Redistributive concerns? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

V. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

PART III: RELEVANT BUYING MARKETS . . . . . . . . .117

4. MarketDefinitioninBuyerPowerCases: Revisiting the Traditional Methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

II. Market definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

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A. Market definition: scope of application and time focus. . . . . . 123

III. Buyer power market definition: a dualistic approach . . . . . . . . . 126A. The dualistic approach and its content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

B. Justification of the dualistic approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

IV. The relevant purchasing market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135A. Conceptualizing the relevant market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

B. The Commission’s view on Buying Market Definition . . . . . . 136

a. Demand substitution: Buyer’s SSNIP test. . . . . . . . . . 138

b. Supply substitution – supply buyer substitution. . . . . . . 144

C. Shortcomings of the current buyer-oriented methodology . . . . 147

D. The hypothetical monopsony test: the OECD alternative. . . . . 152

E. Buyer’s market definition in some Member States . . . . . . . . 154

a. Ability of suppliers to switch to alternative sale opportunities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

b. A dualistic approach to buyer markets . . . . . . . . . . . 154

F. Buyer’s market definition in US Antitrust law . . . . . . . . . . 156

a. Market definition in US Antitrust law: some generalities . . 156

b. Buyer’s market definition in US Antitrust law . . . . . . . 157

V. Conclusions concerning the relevant market. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

5. Buyer Market Power Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

II. Market power assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

III. Buyer market power: dual market power assessment . . . . . . . . . 164

IV. Measuring the buying’s undertaking market power . . . . . . . . . . 167A. Market shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

a. Standard thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

b. Thresholds under buyer power cases . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

c. Market share valuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

B. Market concentration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

C. Unavoidable trading partner and dependence . . . . . . . . . . 182

a. Unavoidable trading partner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

b. Dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

c. Relation between the unavoidable trading partner doctrine and dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

D. Gate-keeping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

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E. Alternative supply sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

V. Alternatives to buyer market definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197A. The Lerner Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

B. Buyer Power Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

C. Criticism against the BPI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

VI. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

PART IV: EXERTING BUYER POWER. EXCLUSION AND EXPLOITATION . . . . . . .205

6. Exclusionary Buyer Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

I. Introduction to Part IV and buyer power exclusion . . . . . . . . . . 207

II. How does buyer-induced exclusion work?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

III. Exclusive supply obligations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213A. Assessment of exclusive supply agreements under

Article 101 TFEU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

B. Exclusive supply agreements imposed by a dominant buyer . . . 220

C. Conclusions regarding exclusive supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

IV. Overbuying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228A. How overbuying operates? Predatory overbuying

and raising rival costs overbuying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

a. Naked overbuying and hoarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

B. Objective reasons to overbuy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

C. Is overbuying common in practice?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

D. Weyerhaeuser Co. v Ross-Simmons Hardwood Lumber Co., Inc. 235

E. Weyerhaeuser à la Européene: revisiting the case from an Ordoliberal perspective and EU competition law . . . . . . . 240

V. Concentrations leading to input (vertical) foreclosure . . . . . . . . . 246A. Horizontal mergers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

B. Vertical Mergers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

VI. Purchasing price discrimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252A. How does buyer purchasing price discrimination

operate and what are its effects? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

B. What is the legal standard used for purchasing price discrimination? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

C. The Robinson-Patman Act: exclusionary purchasing price discrimination in US Antitrust law . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

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a. Exclusionary buyer induced discrimination . . . . . . . . . 264

VII. Leveraging market power from input to output markets with a foreclosing effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266A. Input leveraging through supra-competitive bonuses and

British Airways v Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

a. British Airways v Commission: long story short . . . . . . 271

b. How did British Airways leverage its market power?. . . . 272

c. A buyer power analysis through the dualistic approach. . . 276

d. Virgin vs British Airways: the US Antitrust law version . . 280

B. Where do we stand in buyer market power leverage? . . . . . . 281

VIII. Squeeze to buy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

IX. ‘As efficient buying competitor test’ for price related abuses? . . . . 286

X. Which type of harm triggers competition law application in exclusionary cases? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289A. Precluding buyer exclusion absent consumer harm –

the broader view. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

B. The US Antitrust law narrow approach: protection only present consumer harm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

a. The broader approach to buyer power exclusion in the Robinson-Patman Act: protecting small buyers . . . . . . . 296

C. What are the differences between the approaches? . . . . . . . . 297

XI. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

7. Exploitative Buyer Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

II. How does low purchasing price exploitation work, if it does? . . . . 303A. Self-correction in buyer power cases? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

III. Unilaterally imposing unfairly low purchasing prices . . . . . . . . . 309A. The case law on unfairly low purchasing prices . . . . . . . . . 312

B. United Brands test for excessive purchasing prices: a profit curve test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

a. The test’s first limb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

b. The test’s second limb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

c. Possible shortcomings of the proposed methodology . . . . 320

IV. Exploitative purchasing price discrimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

V. Centralized purchasing and cooperatives, between cartels and dominance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

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A. Rationale for purchasing centralization – economies of scale . . 328

a. How do the economies of scale in centralized purchasing work? What are the effects?. . . . . . . . . . . 329

B. Centralized purchasing and economies of scale under an efficiency analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

C. Cooperatives as agglutinates of buyer and countervailing power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336

VI. Agreements imposing purchasing conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339A. Buyers’ cartel fixing purchasing conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . 342

a. What are and how buyers’ cartels operate and affect competition? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

b. Cartels fixing purchasing prices as object restrictions of competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

c. Is there a difference between monopsony power cartels and bargaining power cartels? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

B. Imposing maximum purchasing quotas as object restrictions . . 356

C. Buying alliances. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

a. Buying alliances as efficient purchasing agreements and only likely to constitute effect based restrictions of competition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

b. Competitive risks generated by buying alliances . . . . . . 362

D. Distinguishing a buying alliance from a buyers’ cartel and its consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

a. Conclusions regarding the distinction . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

E. Buying agreements and restrictions to competition among its own members. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

VII. Defenses and efficiency justifications regarding buyer power exploitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372A. Single conduct efficiency analysis: objective justification

under Article 102 TFEU and concentration cases . . . . . . . . 373

B. Assessing purchasing agreements under Article 101(3) TFEU. . 375

VIII. Which types of harm and standard are used for exploitative cases? . . 377

IX. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

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8. Exploitative Buyer Power: Unfair Purchasing Practices . . . . . . . . . . 387

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

II. Unfair purchasing practices: definition and modalities . . . . . . . . 391A. UPPs as exploitative and vertical related practices . . . . . . . 394

a. UPPs and dependence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

B. Modalities of unfair purchasing practices . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

III. Market Impact of UPPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398A. Suppliers’ viability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

B. Variety and Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

C. End-consumer conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

IV. Are unfair purchasing practices an EU competition problem? . . . . 403A. Why are UPPs often outside EU competition law? . . . . . . . . 407

a. Limited market impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

b. Goals protected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408

c. Fairness and intent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

d. Not an area of enforcement priority . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

e. Lack of cross-border impact. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

B. When are UPPs under the scope of EU competition law? . . . . 411

C. Are there any UPP cases in EU competition law? . . . . . . . . 415

a. FENIN v Commission: a case of UPPs? . . . . . . . . . . 416

b. Risk of UPPs pursuant to a merger leading suppliers in a dependent position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418

D. A glance at US Antitrust law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424

V. Need for regulation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

VI. Alternative solutions to UPPs under national law . . . . . . . . . . . 429A. Lower thresholds or special dominance provisions as part of

competition law – the food retailing sector . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

B. Economic Dependence and UPPs under national competition law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

C. UPPs on specific legislative instruments – unfair competition rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

D. Soft Law alternatives? The case of the ‘codes of conduct’ . . . . 447

VII. The EU and the Supply Chain Initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

VIII. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

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PART V: BUYER POWER FROM A SELLER’S PERSPECTIVE: COUNTERVAILING BUYING POWER AND BUYER POWER LIMITATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

9. Countervailing Buyer Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

II. Defining countervailing buyer power: a narrow approach . . . . . . . 458

III. Countervailing buyer power characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462

IV. Countervailing buyer power in the Commission Guidelines . . . . . 466A. Countervailing buyer power assessment in

concentration cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

a. EU Horizontal Merger Guidelines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

b. Non-horizontal Mergers Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

B. Countervailing buyer power in the Guidance Notice on Article 102 TFEU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

C. Countervailing buyer power and countervailing benefits in the assessment of cases under the scope of Article 101 TFEU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

a. Guidelines on Horizontal Agreements. . . . . . . . . . . . 472

b. Guidelines on Vertical Restraints of 2010 . . . . . . . . . . 472

c. Guidelines on the application of Article 101(3) TFEU . . . 473

D. Critical remarks to the Commission’s soft law . . . . . . . . . . 473

V. Countervailing buyer power in the case law and Commission’s practice: sources and hindrances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475A. Sources of countervailing buyer power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

a. Alternative supply sources and demand shifting . . . . . . 476

b. Buyer size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

c. Commercial significance of the buyer to the seller: ratio of business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

d. Price differentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484

B. Hindrances to countervailing buyer power . . . . . . . . . . . . 484

VI. Countervailing buyer power as a defense and its success . . . . . . . 489

VII. Assessment of countervailing buyer power: ‘the comparison test’ . . 492A. Introduction and thresholds required for its sufficiency . . . . . 492

B. The ‘comparison test’ and its evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

VIII. Protecting weaker buyers: the spillover effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500A. The spillover effect in the Commission’s practice. . . . . . . . . 502

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IX. Are the Commission and the Courts obliged to assess countervailing buyer power? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

X. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510

10. Limiting Buyer Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513

II. Imposing minimum purchasing prices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514A. Legal treatment to the imposition of minimum

purchasing prices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

a. Object restrictions of competition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516

B. Price fixing justifications and the legal consequences . . . . . . 521

C. Formation of ‘legal’ sellers’ cartels pursuant EU regulation. . . 525

D. Conclusions regarding imposition of minimum purchasing prices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527

III. Supply limitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527A. Efficiency assessment for supply limitation agreements . . . . . 530

B. Conclusions regarding supply limitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531

IV. Rebates removing or restricting the buyer’s freedom to choose supply sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532A. Do rebates restrict buyer power exercise? . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

V. Countervailing benefits in exclusive branding and exclusive purchasing obligations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536A. What are countervailing benefits? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

B. How are countervailing benefits assessed in vertical agreements? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539

C. Conclusions regarding countervailing benefits . . . . . . . . . . 542

VI. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543

PART VI: CONCLUSIONS OF THIS STUDY . . . . . . . .547

11. Final Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549

I. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549

II. General findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550

III. Chapter-specific findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558

IV. An EU buyer power doctrine? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

V. On the future of buyer power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569