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The Value of Personal Data in the Competition Law Assessment of the Facebook–WhatsApp Merger Case
131-147Views:240The European Commission fined Facebook 110 million euros for giving misleading information within the merger procedure on acquiring the messaging service WhatsApp in 2014. The case reached a crossroad of competition law, data protection and consumer law. This was the first time the Commission imposed a fine on a company for inaccurate information since the merger regulation rules were established in 2004. Some authors criticized not only the Commission’s decision from 2017 which imposed the fine, but also the decision from 2014 in which the Commission had decided not to oppose the transaction. Some authors oppose tackling data collection issues through competition law, but some authors raise the question: is competition law enough to consider the case when personal data are involved, too? The controversial part of the decision is not about data protection law, but about the value of personal data from the perspective of competition law.
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Higher Level Prevention as Public Value in Competition Law
133-152Views:115The problem-solving mechanism developed by Sparrow in the field of social regulation could also be implemented in competition law in order to prevent the recurrence of competition problems in a given industry. Competition authorities’ (like protection-type agencies) aim is the creation of public value. This is measured in terms of their ability to solve social problems by preventing or controlling harms. In the case of competition authorities, the public value is achieved by ensuring a competitive market environment through the curtailment of market power and the removal of barriers to entry. The public value of prevention is especially important when markets tend to become concentrated. In order to achieve the maximum preventive effect, all prevention tools must be operated effectively. This includes imposing structural remedies or switching to ex-ante prevention (regulation) when ex-post enforcement proves ineffective.
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Public Procurement Issues in the Field of Environmental Liability
175-188Views:177In public procurement, the principle of responsible management of public funds applies (Section 142 of the Public Procurement Act). This does not mean that only the techniques of fast-acting, quasi-abbreviated announcements or accelerated public procurement procedures are preferred, but on the contrary also direct tenders without general public procurement procedures are possible. The basis for efficient and transparent public expenditure at least are public procurement procedures that adhere to minimum procedural deadlines and create competition, i.e. facilitate the participation of as many bidders as possible. On the other hand, remedying environmental damage caused by third parties requires that the award of appropriate protection and remedial measures to the relevant contractors and the associated compliance with public procurement procedures do not cause delays that could contribute to extreme environmental degradation. In these cases, it is necessary to check whether there is a case of extreme urgency (imminent danger) and whether the award procedure can be omitted in whole or in part. In line with the above considerations, the present study, with reference to the Hungarian and EU regulations for public procurement, as well as comparative law with the inclusion of German and Austrian examples, examines whether the Hungarian legislator has additional leeway to prevent and quickly eliminate urgent or permanent serious environmental damage in accordance with procurement law.
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Legal Theory Bases and the Place of Corporate Tax in Tax Policy
153-179Views:208Corporate tax is basically aimed at taxing the income from the business activities of companies (and other enterprises, legal entities). The general characteristics of this type of tax, legal theories of its application, political and economic approaches, as well as the main legislative and enforcement problems can be examined. Each country has different regulations and approaches, but the main features are the same. Accordingly, the study discusses the place, role and general characteristics of corporate tax in tax policy, primarily from a legal point of view, also addressing some economic issues and the relationship between dividend tax and corporate tax.
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About the necessity of a new criminal act: or notes on the criminal offense of agreement in restraint of competition in public procurement and concession procedures
99-121Views:415The criminal act included in Subsection 1 Section 420 of Act C of 2012 on the Criminal Code (hereinafter referred to as Criminal Code) is the only one in the entire Criminal Code where the disposition includes the public procurement procedure as an element of the criminal act. In spite of this, further punishable criminal acts may be associated with the public procurement procedure which are inevitably committed or completed in terms of the legal stadia of the crime, provided that any criminal relationship is established between the parties when public funds are allocated during the course of a tendering procedure.
The non-exhaustive examples of the – examined – conduct subject to proceedings show that the basis of an unfair public procurement procedure is the committing of any of the corruption criminal offenses, and then, after the public procurement procedure had been concluded, the felony of agreement in restraint of competition will constitute the criminal act without prejudice to the ne bis in idem principle, i.e. the criminal act specified in Subsection (1) Section 420 of the Criminal Code is not the definition of public procurement corruption. In order to verify this, I will outline what I personally understand as public procurement corruption.
The primary aim of the study is to support the argument that the delict referred to above is unable to fulfil the intention of the legislator, namely decreasing public procurement corruption. As a secondary focus, the reasons behind the necessity of a new criminal act are referred to.
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Neighbouring Rights of Press Publishers: Issues Relating to Transposition
Views:214Press publishers spend billions on producing quality journalism each year. While the costs of producing well supported, quality journalism manifest in producing the original content, i.e. the very first copy, further costs – due to digitization – are negligible. Parallel to this, prosperous business models thrive on re-using articles in press publications, as well as optimizing them for search and social media platforms attractive enough to generate huge amounts of advertising revenue. But not for the those who actually make the content. The European Union seeks to persuade large digital companies to take part in the financing of European content, mainly through competition law or by taking steps to improve the competitive position of European companies. The rules relating to press publishers of the EU Copyright Directive of 2019 intend to serve this purpose and will be analysed in this paper.
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White Book and Strategy: AI Regulation Initiations in the European Union and Hungary
119-137Views:311Artificial Intelligence (AI), alongside green solutions and the suddenly exploding COVID-19 pandemic, is one of the most important buzzwords of the 21st century in a growing number of areas of society and economy. Despite this, the regulation of technology is still in its infancy in all parts of the world, and neither the European Union nor Hungary are exceptions. But there are already documents and proposals that will form the basis for future legislation in the aforementioned territories. This article analyses these from several perspectives, as well as comparing them with the hopeful goal of bringing them closer to each other.
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Environmental Liability Law: Environmental Civil Experts’ view
86-112Views:138Environmental liability legislation, both the ELD in Europe and CERCLA in US, is burdened with significant compromises, but even if so, they are too leniently implemented. Moreover, rather scarce data are available on the liability cases and on the status of polluted sites, therefore the system is unable to amend itself. There is no reason to be surprised: expenses of protection or remedy of the polluted sites are enormous, the concerned industries would get into a poor competition position in the market if faced with too stringent liability. In the exceptional cases when their deeds are revealed and enforcement actions start, they still might retreat behind the bastions of limited responsibility of their companies. In such situations public participation is a vital element of any progressive outcomes. In the present study we examine the efforts of J&E, a network of public interest environmental lawyers to contribute to moving out the European environmental liability systems from their stalemate position and enhance their effectiveness.
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Detrimental effects of tax havens and the case of the Dutch tax system
45-67Views:254Nowadays, multinationals have become so strong that they can easily compete with states. Consequently, they have the opportunity to develop several tax minimalization strategies such as transfer pricing, inversion, hybrid entities etc. All these have a negative impact on the world economy and state budgets. Despite detrimental effects, certain countries try to cooperate with multinationals by transforming themselves into tax havens. In this framework, they provide multinationals with various kinds of tax advantages such as deductions, low tax rates and preferential tax rulings (“sweetheart deals”). Although, the general attitude towards tax avoidance in the European Union is negative, particular member states’ tax systems display several characteristics of tax havens. In this regard, it should be noted that multinationals regularly use the loopholes and other advantages of the Dutch tax system to minimise their tax liability. The following study – after a brief view to the characteristics of tax havens– will illustrate these options by highlighting the fact that the country – despite the denial of the respective governments – still displays several characteristics of - tax havens.
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The British Isles and the Arctic: Episodes from the Past and Present
159-170Views:102The article explores certain past and present aspects of Britain’s engagement with the Arctic. More specifically, it looks at English and Scottish connections with the area of Spitsbergen (present-day Svalbard, Norway), focusing on exploration and whaling, as well as competition with European powers. Certain legal issues that subsequently arose over the course of time regarding the area are also looked at. Additionally, it examines modern tensions surrounding Svalbard, between the European Union and Norway in the aftermath of Brexit, specifically due to the allocation of fishing quotas. This illustrates the impact that Brexit has had in various different areas. The study also deals with the United Kingdom’s present engagement with the Artic, including Scotland’s attempt at formulating an independent Arctic policy.
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Environmental Tax Harmonisation and Market-Oriented Legal Regulation in the Light of the CJEU Practice
95-117Views:181The subject of the present paper is the explanation and justification of environmental taxes in general terms and, in particular, the assessment of the recent european trends as well as the examination of the practice of the EU Court of Justice followed in this field. The paper considers ecotaxes as the means of fiscal policy that can be put into the service of green growth. For the time being, the enforcement of ecological policy is restricted in many aspects within the EU framework, being unilaterally subordinated to the requirement of free competition. For this reason, the EU law mechanisms of adjustment may get stuck in cases where intervention is not necessary in order to have more but, on the contrary, to have less freedom of market. Since it can be considered as obvious from the perspective of thermodynamic restraints that market imperfections cannot be precluded, the possible aim of intervention is certainly not the reconstruction of free trade, but the suspension of the laws of market. The political and legal basis for this is still missing in the European Union both in theory and practice what can be seen as a serious problem.