Concerted practice is the most nebulous of the three categories caught Essay

Concerted practice is the most nebulous of the three categories caught by Article 101 TFEU - Essay Example 2 With regard to paragraph three and exceptions to the prohibitions in paragraph one of Article 101, those relate to what the law determines as contributing to society either through economic development, technical development, and improvements in the way goods are produced or distributed 3 Under the law, moreover, the European Commission has the power to impose the law, to investigate infringements relating to the violation of the prohibitions in Article 101, and to impose penalties and sanctions. 4 To this end, the Commission may compel suspected parties to share information. 5 There is some consensus that it is difficult to pin down the existence of concerted practice, as reflected in case law. 6 For instance, in cases where increases in prices occur in tandem among a group of players, the price increases themselves may not be sufficient to prove concerted practice. In some cases, for instance, as in Case c-47/09 involving the Netherlands T-Mobile business entity, just one meeting among parties was deemed sufficient to establish concerted practice. In 40/73 involving Sulike Unie, the ruling was that concerted practice may be direct or it may be indirect too, and that no written or verbal communication is necessary to establish concerted practice. In the first instance of consideration of concerted practice in case law, or Case 48/69 involving firms operating in a market that is oligopolistic in nature, the Court of Justice ruled that the presence of parallel price increases amounted to the existence of concerted practice, even if the parties to the case m ade a formal challenge to that ruling. This case involved Imperial Chemical Industries, in the industry involved in dyes. In this instance the Court of Justice established a definition of concerted practice as thus: â€Å"†¦a form of coordination between undertakings which, without having reached the stage where an agreement properly so-called