EU competition law sanctions and remedies and WTO law countermeasures

The purpose of this chapter is to compare the two legal systems' approaches to remedies and to evaluate WTO law according to the law and economics benchmark adopted in chapter 1. The chapter begins by establishing functional comparability by finding tertium comparationis for EU competition law's sanctions and remedies and WTO law's remedies. It then identifies similarities and differences in the two systems and thereafter attempts to explain them based on specific features of WTO law. Finally, the chapter makes an appraisal of the two legal systems' similarities and differences with the purpose of determining whether WTO law remedies attain the benchmark set by EU competition law. The comparative evaluation shows EU competition law sanctions and remedies to be overall more administrable, efficient, and effective than WTO law remedies. Based on the explored explanations, some of WTO law's shortcomings may be unavoidable. Most, however, are attributable to interpretative choices made by arbitrators and to the WTO Members' view on and usage of the WTO dispute settlement system. Consequently, the conclusion drawn by this chapter is that most are amenable to change and improvement.