Actual Competitor

Gonçalo Rosas is the author of the article "Actual Competitor", recently published in Concurrences' Global Dictionary of Competition Law platform.

«An actual competitor is an undertaking which is active in the same relevant product, geographic and temporal market as another undertaking or undertakings. This should be contrasted with a potential competitor (see European Commission Guidelines on the Applicability of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to horizontal co-operation agreements, paragraph 10). Most systems of competition law define actual competitor by assessing the cross-elasticity of demand and supply, barriers to entry and the conditions of competition in the market. The concept of competitor is central in competition law systems because it is the starting point for further substantive analysis. The concept is relevant in order to ascertain inter alia whether an agreement between undertakings infringes antitrust rules, to find and assess a dominant position and the effects of an abuse or to review the impact of a merger (…) ».

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