COMPETITION LAW

Center for the Promotion of Research

CEFI analyzes doctrinal and case-law developments in the field of competition law. It does so mainly through specialized competition law seminars, the Pharmaceutical Law Course—which includes a roundtable discussion on competition law—and collaborations in the journal Communications on Industrial Property and Competition Law.

Competition Law

Within its training, debate, and outreach activities in this area of law, CEFI organizes specialized competition law seminars as well as the Pharmaceutical Law Course. In the specialized seminars, a recurring review is carried out of the practical aspects of applying competition law to the pharmaceutical sector. This update is highly useful and typically features expert lawyers and representatives from the Spanish National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC). These courses are held over the course of a morning and enjoy strong attendance. The Pharmaceutical Law Course usually includes a roundtable discussion on competition law, where current and practical competition issues in the pharmaceutical field are analyzed. It is a course that generates significant interest and is recognized as an important meeting point for experts in the sector.

For these training and outreach activities, we work with leading collaborators—lawyers who are experts in competition law—some of whom are members of the Editorial Board of the journal Communications on Industrial Property and Competition Law. The journal Communications on Industrial Property and Competition Law examines doctrinal analysis, case law, and decisions issued in this field. Examples of the issues addressed in our studies include vertical agreements, dominant position, market definition, information exchange between competitors and parallel trade, distribution, supply, and pricing. These topics apply across all sectors, with particular focus on those impacting the pharmaceutical industry. Among them, we highlight the extensive and ongoing doctrinal and case-law debate on free pricing/double pricing, the compatibility of pay-for-delay agreements with competition law, and the issue of abuse of a dominant position in the pharmaceutical sector.

The application of competition rules in the pharmaceutical sector has also been analyzed by the European Commission. CEFI has closely followed the European Commission’s reports in this area. Within our editorial activity devoted to competition law, we should highlight two special issues of the journal Communications on Industrial Property and Competition Law, dedicated respectively to the Spanish Competition Act 15/2007 and to the reform of the Unfair Competition Act introduced by Act 29/2009. We also address other matters through articles published in the journal, such as: the transposition in Spain of the Directive on damages arising from infringements of competition law; a decade of the Competition Act and an assessment of its application; excessive pricing and the current legal framework; the scope of gun-jumping protection in merger control proceedings; the legality of free-pricing systems under the freedom of enterprise; competition and efficiency in public procurement; directors’ liability for infringements of competition law; self-cleaning measures and compliance programs in competition law in Spain; and the application of the European State aid regime during the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, we monitor and analyze documents and reports issued by the Spanish National Commission on Markets and Competition (CNMC) and by the European Commission in the field of competition, and we study decisions related to the pharmaceutical sector.