I. ARBITRATION AND EU COMPETITION LAW: CONTRADICTION AND COMPLEMENTARITY

Any discussion of application of EU competition rules by courts cannot ignore arbitration. Arbitration is long-recognised by states as a dispute resolution mechanism alternative to litigation. It is the creation of the private autonomy of the parties, who withdraw the regulation of their disputes from state justice through a contract, the arbitration agreement. The arbitrators are called upon to resolve a certain dispute that has been submitted to them by the parties and do so by applying the law that is applicable to the merits of the dispute.1 To designate that law, they must, like state courts, have access to private international law methods. The agreement to arbitrate is an enforceable contract that binds the parties and excludes the courts’ jurisdiction to deal with the dispute. The arbitrators’ final decision, the arbitral award, produces the same fundamental effects like judgments: it enjoys res judicata and, subject to certain formalities, is enforceable. In most developed legal systems, courts may not review arbitral awards in their substance (révision au fond), except for very narrow grounds, and may set them aside or refuse their recognition or enforcement, if certain conditions are met, which are rather exceptional, especially in the case of foreign arbitral awards.