Competition legislation
What statutes set out competition law?
The Act on Restraints on Competition (GARC) contains the substantive rules on cartels, abuse of market dominance, merger control and public procurement. It features civil law claims to remedies for parties infringed by anticompetitive behaviour and bestows the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) with the competence to investigate markets and sanction anticompetitive behaviour.
At EU level, articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) are the focal provisions of competition law. Articles 101 and 102 are flanked by many Commission Regulations and Commission Guidelines, setting out how EU antitrust law is to be applied in practice. The last revision of the GARC, implementing the provisions of the ECN+ Directive (Directive (EU) 2019/1), entered into effect in January 2021.
