EU 경쟁법의 일관성 있고 효과적인 집행을 위한 노력

Efforts to Ensure Consistent and Effective Enforcement of EU Competition Law: Focused on ECN and ECN+ Directive Proposal

This study aims to explore the efforts, especially ECN and ECN+Directive proposal, which were made by the EU to ensure coherent and effective enforcement of EU competition law and to draw some useful implications from the experience of EU. As the EU enacted Regulation 1/2003, the EU Commission and NCAs became to be able to enforce EU competition law. So, for the purpose of coherent and effective enforcement of the law, the EU created a European Competition Network (ECN) composed of the EU Commission and NCAs to make the network members to cooperate actively. However, Regulation 1/2003 did not specify the powers and means for NCAs necessary to enforce the EU Competition law. Differences in regulatory powers and levels among Member States have been existed, and those are barriers on coherent and effective enforcement of the law. Therefore, the EU Commission has prepared an ECN+ Directive proposal to complement the above system. Currently, ECN is regarded as a good example of the competition law cooperation system. Therefore, from the view of comparative law and comparative administration, studying the background of preparing ECN+ Directive proposal, the steps and procedures taken by EU Commission for finding solutions, and the considerations/concerns of the EU Commission in preparing the proposal has significant meaning can provide considerable implications. In particular, it can provide considerable implications for Korea to play a certain role in the competition law cooperation system in global or East Asia.