European antitrust policy : an analysis of commission decisions during 1964-2002

Competition policy is both an active and much debated area of government intervention in market processes. This paper surveys European antitrust policy since the grounds for its implementation were laid down by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. To that end, it provides a statistical analysis of European antitrust enforcement based on information collected from the Official Journal. The data cover all antitrust decisions by the European Commission up till 2002. A range of summary statistics concerning report route, duration, length of the decision, economic rationale, imposed fines, number of parties sector classification and Commissioner responsible are presented for the total of five hundred cases. We investigate the determinants of the probability of infringement for notified cases and the probability of appeal to the ECJ for infringement cases