Regulatory reform in the brazilian railway sector and its potential effects

Trabalho apresentado no Law and Society Annual Conference, 2015

O dever constitucional de eficiência administrativa na jurisprudência do Supremo Tribunal Federal

O dever constitucional de eficiência administrativa consiste em norma reitora da atividade regulatória e das demais funções estatais. Este trabalho tem o objetivo de investigar seus sentidos, os tipos de norma em que se classifica e as estruturas argumentativas para a sua aplicação. Entende-se, por sentidos, os critérios usados para se considerar que uma conduta ou medida cumpre ou viola o dever de eficiência, incluindo consideração da relação entre meios para o exercício da atividade administrativa e resultados dessa atividade. Parte-se de diagnóstico de indefinição conceitual, na literatura jurídica brasileira, acerca desse dever constitucional, para investigar a existência de subsídios, na jurisprudência do Supremo Tribunal Federal, que viabilizem elaboração de conceito. Desse modo, verifica-se, na literatura, multiplicidade de definições. Além disso, o aspecto da análise custo-benefício, referido tanto na literatura sobre economicidade quanto nos textos sobre análise econômica do direito, sugere que o assunto também possa ser abordado de modo a correlacioná-lo ao conceito econômico de eficiência de Kaldor-Hicks ou de maximização da riqueza. Na jurisprudência, foi encontrada grande quantidade de sentidos de eficiência, a indicar que o STF pode não ter um posicionamento claro, senão em relação à concepção do dever constitucional de eficiência como um todo, pelo menos em relação a aspectos do conceito, a implicar a necessidade de elaboração, pelo tribunal, casuisticamente, de critérios para considerar que determinada conduta ou medida cumpre ou viola esse dever constitucional. Verificou-se, ainda, a ocorrência de aparentes divergências entre os ministros não apenas com relação à solução concreta de um caso, mas com relação à definição, em um mesmo caso, do sentido do dever de eficiência. Não se pode afirmar, no entanto, com segurança, que a concepção do dever de eficiência em um acórdão seja determinante, no STF, para a orientação dos votos. Ainda assim, um mesmo caso pode ter soluções distintas a depender do sentido de eficiência que se adote. Ademais, os acórdãos que parecem proceder a análise custo-benefício não se parecem referir a conceitos ou a critérios de eficiência econômica para fundamentar essa análise. Esses acórdãos também raramente fazem referência a dados empíricos. Quanto aos tipos de norma às estruturas argumentativas para aplicação, a literatura faz referência a teorias incompatíveis que dificultam compreender de maneira inequívoca como ocorre essa aplicação. O STF, a seu turno, faz uso de pelo menos 3 (três) estruturas argumentativas para aplicar o dever de eficiência: o consequencialismo, a análise custo-benefício e a ponderação de normas. O uso concomitante da análise custo-benefício e da ponderação de normas, contudo, enseja confusão entre o dever de eficiência e a máxima da proporcionalidade. Nesse contexto, a proposta conceitual busca tornar claros os sentidos, os tipos de norma e os modos de aplicação do dever constitucional de eficiência, mediante adoção de referencial teórico único que seja compatível com os achados de jurisprudência. Sendo assim, propõe-se a classificação do dever de eficiência como sobreprincípio e do dever de economicidade como postulado, com referência às concepções teóricas de Humberto Ávila, buscando-se evitar incorrer nos problemas diagnosticados na doutrina e na jurisprudência.

Os conflitos de competência normativa do estado regulador brasileiro no setor administrado pela ANP

The dissertation has by objective describe the administrative activity of regulation exercised by independent regulatory agencies, observing that this activity was already done before this structures creation, however, after a really deep administrative reform that had as objective built a Public Administration with more efficiency, it passed to be done with some own peculiarities of these new structures of regulation. The work gave especial attention to what concern the conflicts of normative competency that really often happen between ANP (Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustíveis) and the legislatives organs of the Republic Federative of Brazil, because energetic area has unbelievable mater to any country, and the fact of some juridical norm be against the law and be accepted is very dangerous, it affronts the constitutional principle of the legality e may put in risk the democratic Estate of law, them, regulatory dogmatic must be scientifically knows, and developed, thought and especially there are so many doctrinaires divergences about regulation constitutionality. As a theorist point, the investigation got the Logical nocontradiction principle, according Hans Kelsen and Lourival Vilanova thought, doing a philosophical reflection about the system of positive law, in which there are many antinomies, or conflicts of norms, what include the conflicts of the administrative acts expedited by ANP and the legislation of the brazilian regulatory Estate. For a better understanding and exemplify some perplexities treated by the doctrinaire angle, this work did a lucubration about a possibility of a normative conflict between a ANP resolution and the municipal legislation in a specific case, also, brought several jurisprudences for the brazilians courts of justice, that confirm the empiric existence of normative conflicts among ANP s administrative norms and federal legislation. Finally, concludes observing that the regulation is not a legislative competency delegation to regulatory agencies, is just a new exercise of the administrative function, it is a technical specialization of the public administration, that using this know-how can acting with more efficiency, however the normative power of regulatory agencies must respect the empire of law, so in this terms, the dissertation suggests the ponderation of the constitutionals principles of efficiency and legality how form to harmonizing the democratic legitimate inherent to legal norm supremacy, with the perspective of an efficient economic and institutional development

O desafio constitucional da distribuição dos royalties de petróleo da bacia pré-sal para promoção de políticas públicas

The administrative model of the Brazilian State, based on regulation, strives, with the application of the efficiency principle and assessment of economical costs, to give a greater effectiveness to fundamental rights by implementing public policies.The objective of this work is to analyze the role of Oil royalties in the context of the Brazilian State, considering that, being an income gap, they might work as a device that promotes intra/intergenerational justice. By means of a correct and efficient distribution and application in the national region, the royalties constitute financial resources available for implementing public policies that intend to guarantee the fundamental rights; above all, with the discovery of the Pre-salt basin and the indisputable rise in the tax revenues arising from Oil exploration. In the making of this work, the theoretical-descriptive methodology is observed, grounded in a critical-reflexive analysis about Constitutional Law and Oil Law. This work analyzes the administrative model of the Brazilian State, the theory of costs of fundamental rights and the theoretical aspects about royalties, such as: the ethical and economical fundamentals, the distribution and destination of revenues, considering the oil exploration scenario before and after the discovery of the pre-salt basin. it is verified, with the present work, the importance of the creation of a new regulatory framework, and consequently the creation of a sovereign wealth fund, which arises to re-evaluate the application of the current norms of Oil revenue distribution. Still, it is imperative that the mechanisms for controlling the application of royalties are defined in detail, so that those can fully admit the objectives of intra/intergenerational justice. Furthermore, it is emphasized that this process should develop from the efficiency principle viewpoint, as well as the principle of reducing social and regional differences, given that the Oil revenues might be used to ensure fundamental social rights, by implementing public policies that are aligned with the development recommended by the Federal Constitution

Democracia participativa e regulação econômica: uma questão de legitimidade

This work presents an analysis about the legitimation of independent regulatory commission`s rulemaking power by participation procedure. It is observed that political and administrative decentralization and fragmentation of State, with the purpose of approaching citizens and provide, more efficiently, the functions acquired by the passage of the Welfare State, leads to a deficit of legitimacy (democratic crisis), which is noticeable in the making of legal norms by directors of independent regulatory commission to regulate specific economic sector. However, we understand that this crisis stems from the observation of the contemporary world from dogmas and legal institutions of the eighteenth century, without their evolution and adaptation to the modern world. The legitimacy must be perceived as the justification of power, relation command /obedience, which, from the Modern State, has the democracy as standard. Therefore, just as the world has evolved and demanded political and administrative decentralization to accompany him, it is necessary to the development of the idea of representative democracy (formal legitimacy) to participatory democracy (legitimacy stuff). Legitimacy is not confused with the legality: as the legality is on observance to internal legal system, the "rules of play"; legitimacy, as inputs to be fed into this system, the selection of the different expectations in the environment. Nevertheless, the legitimacy will take place by legality, through introduction of rational and communicative procedures: procedures get fundamental importance because these will be the means to select the expectations to be introduced in the legal system in order to make decisions more fair, rational and qualified towards society. Thus, it is necessary to its opening to the environment for dialogue with the government. In this context, we try to make an analysis of constitutional norms based on systematic and teleological interpretation of these norms to build these arguments. According to the Constitution of 1988, participatory democracy is a result of the democratic principle (sole paragraph of art. 1 of the Constitution), and it is an expression of citizenship and political pluralism, both foundations of Republic (respectively Art. 1st, inc . V and II of the Constitution), as well as the national consciousness. From another point of view, that principle consists of an evolution in the management public affairs (principle of Republic). The right of interested participate in the rulemaking process derives both the principle of popular participation (part of the democratic principle) and the republican principle as the due process constitutional (art. 5, LIV and LV, CF/88) and the right to petition (Art . 5 °, inc. XXXIV, "a", CF/88), and it is the duty of the State not only be open to participation and encourage it. Ignoring stakeholder involvement in procedures and / or expressions compiled can be causes of invalidation of the rule of law produced by addiction of procedure, motive, motivation and/or because of the administrative act. Finally, we conclude that the involvement of stakeholders in the process of making rules within the independent regulatory commission is the legitimacy and the validity of rules; and that, despite of the expressions do not bind the decision making, they will enter the system as juridical fact, balancing the field of technical discretionary of agencies

Regulatory issues on pharmacovigilance in Latin American countries

Pharmacovigilance is responsible for monitoring the safety of medicines in normal clinical use andduring clinical trials. Legal requirements for pharmacovigilance in some Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) were reviewed. Disparities in the legal framework among the countries are observed being those for marketing authorization holders one of the most evident. Theactive rol of the universities and drug information centers for/of pharmacovilance seems to be a positivecommon point. Legal requirements regarding pharmacovigilance of biosimilar medicines, is still a pointto be developed.

Quantifying the Economics of Medical Malpractice - A View from a Civil Law Perspective

Life is full of uncertainties. Legal rules should have a clear intention, motivation and purpose in order to diminish daily uncertainties. However, practice shows that their consequences are complex and hard to predict. For instance, tort law has the general objectives of deterring future negligent behavior and compensating the victims of someone else's negligence. Achieving these goals are particularly difficult in medical malpractice cases. To start with, when patients search for medical care they are typically sick in the first place. In case harm materializes during the treatment, it might be very hard to assess if it was due to substandard medical care or to the patient's poor health conditions. Moreover, the practice of medicine has a positive externality on the society, meaning that the design of legal rules is crucial: for instance, it should not result in physicians avoiding practicing their activity just because they are afraid of being sued even when they acted according to the standard level of care. The empirical literature on medical malpractice has been developing substantially in the past two decades, with the American case being the most studied one. Evidence from civil law tradition countries is more difficult to find. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the empirical literature on medical malpractice, using two civil law countries as a case-study: Spain and Italy. The goal of this thesis is to investigate, in the first place, some of the consequences of having two separate sub-systems (administrative and civil) coexisting within the same legal system, which is common in civil law tradition countries with a public national health system (such as Spain, France and Portugal). When this holds, different procedures might apply depending on the type of hospital where the injury took place (essentially whether it is a public hospital or a private hospital). Therefore, a patient injured in a public hospital should file a claim in administrative courts while a patient suffering an identical medical accident should file a claim in civil courts. A natural question that the reader might pose is why should both administrative and civil courts decide medical malpractice cases? Moreover, can this specialization of courts influence how judges decide medical malpractice cases? In the past few years, there was a general concern with patient safety, which is currently on the agenda of several national governments. Some initiatives have been taken at the international level, with the aim of preventing harm to patients during treatment and care. A negligently injured patient might present a claim against the health care provider with the aim of being compensated for the economic loss and for pain and suffering. In several European countries, health care is mainly provided by a public national health system, which means that if a patient harmed in a public hospital succeeds in a claim against the hospital, public expenditures increase because the State takes part in the litigation process. This poses a problem in a context of increasing national health expenditures and public debt. In Italy, with the aim of increasing patient safety, some regions implemented a monitoring system on medical malpractice claims. However, if properly implemented, this reform shall also allow for a reduction in medical malpractice insurance costs. This thesis is organized as follows. Chapter 1 provides a review of the empirical literature on medical malpractice, where studies on outcomes and merit of claims, costs and defensive medicine are presented. Chapter 2 presents an empirical analysis of medical malpractice claims arriving to the Spanish Supreme Court. The focus is on reversal rates for civil and administrative decisions. Administrative decisions appealed by the plaintiff have the highest reversal rates. The results show a bias in lower administrative courts, which tend to focus on the State side. We provide a detailed explanation for these results, which can rely on the organization of administrative judges career. Chapter 3 assesses predictors of compensation in medical malpractice cases appealed to the Spanish Supreme Court and investigates the amount of damages attributed to patients. The results show horizontal equity between administrative and civil decisions (controlling for observable case characteristics) and vertical inequity (patients suffering more severe injuries tend to receive higher payouts). In order to execute these analyses, a database of medical malpractice decisions appealed to the Administrative and Civil Chambers of the Spanish Supreme Court from 2006 until 2009 (designated by the Spanish Supreme Court Medical Malpractice Dataset (SSCMMD)) has been created. A description of how the SSCMMD was built and of the Spanish legal system is presented as well. Chapter 4 includes an empirical investigation of the effect of a monitoring system for medical malpractice claims on insurance premiums. In Italy, some regions adopted this policy in different years, while others did not. The study uses data on insurance premiums from Italian public hospitals for the years 2001-2008. This is a significant difference as most of the studies use the insurance company as unit of analysis. Although insurance premiums have risen from 2001 to 2008, the increase was lower for regions adopting a monitoring system for medical claims. Possible implications of this system are also provided. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the main findings, describes possible future research and concludes.

Governo, strutture e trasformazioni nel sistema universitario

L’elaborato costituisce la fase di approfondimento conclusivo del lavoro scientifico svolto negli anni precedenti. In quest’ottica, a circa tre anni dalla sua entrata in vigore, esso risulta prevalentemente incentrato sull’analisi delle principali innovazioni imposte dalla legge 30 dicembre 2010, n . 240, recante "Norme in materia di organizzazione delle università, di personale accademico e reclutamento, nonché delega al Governo per incentivare la qualità e l'efficienza del sistema universitario", nel tentativo di individuare quali soluzioni ,più o meno differenziate in base alle specificità delle diverse realtà, gli atenei italiani abbiano prefigurato mediante la revisione dei propri statuti, organi e strutture, al fine di rispettare ed attuare il dettato legislativo e non comprimere i propri spazi di autonomia. Contemporaneamente, esso approfondisce l’orientamento della giurisprudenza amministrativa in materia, la quale proprio nel corso di quest’anno ha avuto più di un’occasione di pronunciarsi in merito, per effetto dell’impugnazione ministeriale di molti dei nuovi statuti di autonomia. Infine, non viene tralasciata l’analisi dei profili e aspetti del sistema universitario italiano non intaccati dal cambiamento, ai fini del loro coordinamento con quelli riformati, cercando di percorrere parallelamente più strade: dalla ricognizione e lo studio dei più autorevoli contributi che la dottrina ha recentemente elaborato in materia, all’inquadramento delle scelte effettuate in sede di attuazione dai singoli atenei, anche alla luce dei decreti applicativi emanati. Il tutto al fine di individuare, anche grazie a studi di tipo comparato, con particolare riferimento all’ordinamento spagnolo, nuove soluzioni per il sistema universitario che, senza la pretesa di giungere a percorsi di cambiamento validamente applicabili per tutti gli atenei, possano risultare utili alla definizione di principi e modelli base, nel pieno rispetto del dettato costituzionale e dei parametri individuati a livello europeo con il processo di Bologna e la strategia di Lisbona.

The Law and Economics of Hedge Fund Regulation: A Comparison between the U.S. and the EU

This doctoral dissertation seeks to assess and address the potential contribution of the hedge fund industry to financial instability. In so doing, the dissertation investigates three main questions. What are the contributions of hedge funds to financial instability? What is the optimal regulatory strategy to address the potential contribution of hedge funds to financial instability? And do new regulations in the U.S. and the EU address the contribution of hedge funds to financial instability? With respect to financial stability concerns, it is argued that despite their benefits, hedge funds can contribute to financial instability. Hedge funds’ size and leverage, their interconnectedness with Large Complex Financial Institutions (LCFIs), and the likelihood of herding behavior in the industry can potentially undermine financial stability. Nonetheless, the data on hedge funds’ size and leverage suggest that these features are far from being systemically important. In contrast, the empirical evidence on the interconnectedness of hedge funds with LCFIs and their herding behavior is mixed. Based on these findings, the thesis focuses on one particular aspect of hedge fund regulation: direct vs. indirect regulation. In this respect, a major contribution of the thesis to the literature consists in the explicit discussion of the relationships between hedge funds and other market participants. Specifically, the thesis locates the domain of the indirect regulation in the inter-linkages between hedge funds and prime brokers. Accordingly, the thesis argues that the indirect regulation is likely to address the contribution of hedge funds to systemic risk without compromising their benefits to financial markets. The thesis further conducts a comparative study of the regulatory responses to the potential contribution of hedge funds to financial instability through studying the EU Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFMD) and the hedge fund-related provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.

Fighting corruption with pyramids: A Law and Economics approach to combating corruption in post-socialist countries

Corruption is, in the last two decades, considered as one of the biggest problems within the international community, which harms not only a particular state or society but the whole world. The discussion on corruption in law and economics approach is mainly run under the veil of Public choice theory and principal-agent model. Based on this approach the strong international initiatives taken by the UN, the OECD and the Council of Europe, provided various measures and tools in order to support and guide countries in their combat against corruption. These anti-corruption policies created a repression -prevention-transparency model for corruption combat. Applying this model, countries around the world adopted anti-corruption strategies as part of their legal rules. Nevertheless, the recent researches on the effects of this move show non impressive results. Critics argue that “one size does not fit all” because the institutional setting of countries around the world varies. Among the countries which experience problems of corruption, even though they follow the dominant anti-corruption trends, are transitional, post-socialist countries. To this group belong the countries which are emerging from centrally planned to an open market economy. The socialist past left traces on institutional setting, mentality of the individuals and their interrelation, particularly in the domain of public administration. If the idiosyncrasy of these countries is taken into account the suggestion in this thesis is that in public administration in post-socialist countries, instead of dominant anti-corruption scheme repression-prevention-transparency, corruption combat should be improved through the implementation of a new one, structure-conduct-performance. The implementation of this model is based on three regulatory pyramids: anti-corruption, disciplinary anti-corruption and criminal anti-corruption pyramid. This approach asks public administration itself to engage in corruption combat, leaving criminal justice system as the ultimate weapon, used only for the very harmful misdeeds.

Credit-Default-Swaps and the 2008 Financial Crisis: An Inquiry into the Underlying Legal Origins and the European Union’s Regulatory Reforms

After the 2008 financial crisis, the financial innovation product Credit-Default-Swap (CDS) was widely blamed as the main cause of this crisis. CDS is one type of over-the-counter (OTC) traded derivatives. Before the crisis, the trading of CDS was very popular among the financial institutions. But meanwhile, excessive speculative CDSs transactions in a legal environment of scant regulation accumulated huge risks in the financial system. This dissertation is divided into three parts. In Part I, we discussed the primers of the CDSs and its market development, then we analyzed in detail the roles CDSs had played in this crisis based on economic studies. It is advanced that CDSs not just promoted the eruption of the crisis in 2007 but also exacerbated it in 2008. In part II, we asked ourselves what are the legal origins of this crisis in relation with CDSs, as we believe that financial instruments could only function, positive or negative, under certain legal institutional environment. After an in-depth inquiry, we observed that at least three traditional legal doctrines were eroded or circumvented by OTC derivatives. It is argued that the malfunction of these doctrines, on the one hand, facilitated the proliferation of speculative CDSs transactions; on the other hand, eroded the original risk-control legal mechanism. Therefore, the 2008 crisis could escalate rapidly into a global financial tsunami, which was out of control of the regulators. In Part III, we focused on the European Union’s regulatory reform towards the OTC derivatives market. In specific, EU introduced mandatory central counterparty clearing obligation for qualified OTC derivatives, and requires that all OTC derivatives shall be reported to a trade repository. It is observable that EU’s approach in re-regulating the derivatives market is different with the traditional administrative regulation, but aiming at constructing a new market infrastructure for OTC derivatives.

Legality and Human Rights: Administrative Justice in Russia 1862-1917

The question of how far pre-revolutionary Russia was from the ideal of a lawful state has received little academic attention, particularly as relates to the legal regulation of relations between person, society and state within the state administration. Pravilova explored the methods of settling disputes between individuals and the administration, and the emergence of legal controls of the administration, analysed projects for the organisation of administrative justice and studied the particular nature of concepts from Russian administrative justice. The idea of an organisation of special bodies examining complaints by private persons against the actions of officials and state bureaucratic organs first appeared in the early 1860s. In the 1870s-1890s various projects for the reform of administrative justice (reorganisation of the Senate and local administrative institutions) were proposed by the Ministries of Justice and Finance, but none of these was put into practice, largely due to resistance from the bureaucracy. At the same time, however, the rapid development of private enterprise, the activities of the zemstvo and self-government produced new norms and mechanisms for the regulation of authorities and social relations. Despite the lack of institutional conditions, the Senate did consider complaints from private persons against illegal actions by administrative officials, playing a role similar to that of the supreme administrative courts in France and Germany. The spread of concepts of a 'lawful state' aroused support for a system of administrative justice and the establishment of administrative tribunals was seen as a condition of legality and a guarantee of human rights. The government was forced to understand that measures to maintain legality were vital to preserve the stability of the system of state power, but plans for liberal reforms were pushed into the background by constitutional reforms. The idea of guarantees of human rights in relations with the authorities was in contradiction with the idea of the monarchy and it was only when the Provisional Government took power in 1917 that the liberal programme of legal reforms had any chance of being put into practice. A law passed in June 1917 ordained the organisation of local administrative justice bodies, but its implementation was hampered by the war, the shortage of qualified judges and the existing absolute legal illiteracy, and the few administrative courts that were set up were soon abolished by the new Soviet authorities. Pravilova concluded that the establishment of a lawful state in pre-revolutionary Russia was prevented by a number of factors, particularly the autocratic nature of the supreme authority, which was incompatible with the idea of administrative justice as a guarantee of the rights of citizens in their relations with the state.

EC Electronic Communications and Competition Law

Telecommunications have developed at an incredible speed over the last couple of decades. The decreasing size of our phones and the increasing number of ways in which we can communicate are barely the only result of this (r)evolutionary development. The latter has indeed multiple implications. The change of paradigm for telecommunications regulation, epitomised by the processes of liberalisation and reregulation, was not sufficient to answer all regulatory questions pertinent to communications. Today, after the transition from monopoly to competition, we are faced perhaps with an even harder regulatory puzzle, since we must figure out how to regulate a sector that is as dynamic and as unpredictable as electronic communications have proven to be, and as vital and fundamental to the economy and to society at large. The present book addresses the regulatory puzzle of contemporary electronic communications and suggests the outlines of a coherent model for their regulation. The search for such a model involves essentially deliberations on the question "Can competition law do it all?", since generic competition rules are largely seen as the appropriate regulatory tool for the communications domain. The latter perception has been the gist of the 2002 reform of the European Community (EC) telecommunications regime, which envisages a withdrawal of sectoral regulation, as communications markets become effectively competitive and ultimately bestows the regulation of the sector upon competition law only. The book argues that the question of whether competition law is the appropriate tool needs to be examined not in the conventional contexts of sector specific rules versus competition rules or deregulation versus regulation but in a broader governance context. Consequently, the reader is provided with an insight into the workings and specific characteristics of the communications sector as network-bound, converging, dynamic and endowed with a special societal role and function. A thorough evaluation of the regulatory objectives in the communications environment contributes further to the comprehensive picture of the communications industry. Upon this carefully prepared basis, the book analyses the communications regulatory toolkit. It explores the interplay between sectoral communications regulation, competition rules (in particular Article 82 of the EC Treaty) and the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) relevant to telecommunications services. The in-depth analysis of multilevel construct of EC communications law is up-to-date and takes into account important recent developments in the EC competition law in practice, in particular in the field of refusal to supply and tying, of the reform of the EC electronic communications framework and new decisions of the WTO dispute settlement body, such as notably the Mexico-Telecommunications Services Panel Report. Upon these building elements, an assessment of the regulatory potential of the EC competition rules is made. The conclusions drawn are beyond the scope of the current situation of EC electronic communications and the applicable law and explore the possible contours of an optimal regulatory framework for modern communications. The book is of particular interest to communications and antitrust law experts, as well as policy makers, government agencies, consultancies and think-tanks active in the field. Experts on other network industries (such as electricity or postal communications) can also profit from the substantial experience gathered in the communications sector as the most advanced one in terms of liberalisation and reregulation.