competitionlaw

A recent application of the Community guidelines on State aid for railway undertakings by the European Commission can be find in the case N 483/2009- Italia Regione Emilia Romagna-Aiuti a favore del trasporto ferroviario merci . In this decision the Commission assessed aid granted in favour of rail freight transport by the Italian region of Emilia Romagna on the basis of chapter six of the Guidelines. Eventually the Commission hold that the aid was compatible with the internal market and authorized it. The decision is worth reading for it gives an insight into the relevant elements for the Commission in assessing aid to rail. Before doing that, a short summary of the aid in question will be given. The aid is aimed at rebalancing the freight transport sector by incentivizing rail transport and intermodal transport services, namely those supplied with complete or block trains. Any rail service further than those operated the year before applying for aid and with point of origin/desti...

By a decision of 22 October 2009 the Competition Commission (CC) has unconditionally cleared the Stagecoach acquisition of two local bus operators in Eastbourne, Eastbourne Buses Limited (EBL) and Cavendish referred by the OFT on the basis of Section 22(1) of the Enterprise Act 2002. Though both the purchased undertakings fell short of the scope of application of the failing firm defence, the CC held that because of the poor market performances of EBL and Cavendish the transaction would not have substantially lessened competition. Considering the small premerger presence of Stagecoach in the relevant market for the provision of bus services in Eastbourne, the more appropriate counterfactual was whether, should the merger have not proceeded, either EBL or Cavendish would have exited the market in the foreseeable future or would have downsize operations, thereby ceasing to exert competition constraint on the other. EBL would have not exited the market in the short term, but it was...