EU Law Enforcement – Central point of information, research and discussion

The Single Market Enforcement Agenda, an example of more transparency?

Enforcement of Single Market rules and ensuring a level playing field without unjustified barriers is key in order to make the Single Market work for businesses and citizens. In January 2026 the European Commission presented its first annual Single Market enforcement agenda as part of its annual Single Market and Competitiveness Report of 2026. Although, is it a fully-fledged agenda? The actual size and content of the agenda raise some questions. What does the Commission intend and how will it live up to its initial promises? Would a more comprehensive agenda be desirable and possible and how the Commission could and should give more transparency about enforcement? After a brief description of the initial announcement of the agenda and content of the first Single Market enforcement agenda, I will discuss the last two questions. More transparency is desirable: from a democratic perspective, but also in order to focus enforcement on those areas which matter most for a well-functioning Single Market based on a dialogue between the Commission, Council of Ministers of the European Union and European Parliament.

[REPOST] Wat zijn de grootste obstakels in toezicht en handhaving?

Overtredingen van wetten en regels veroorzaken grote maatschappelijke schade: misbruik van zorggeld, schade aan het milieu en uitbuiting van werknemers. Maar de pakkans van ernstige overtredingen is laag. De Algemene Rekenkamer analyseerde 54 onderzoeken over toezicht en handhaving uit de periode 2013-2025. In de publicatie benoemt ze de vier grootste obstakels voor toezicht en handhaving en doet ze aanbevelingen.

Enforcement of insolvency and restructuring laws: a key to a competitive energy market?

Introduction

The liberalization of the energy market has introduced profound changes both to the structure and efficiency of energy supply, bringing the underpinnings of a competitive market with it. At the same time, while open to the benefits of competition in some parts of the supply chain, the new energy market has become more prone to shock in relation to price fluctuations, its structure and assurance of demand. The 2021-2023 energy crisis has demonstrated the risks of a liberalized energy market in emergency circumstances, where as a result of unprecedentedly high energy prices, substantial number of energy suppliers became insolvent and were unable to supply the market sufficiently. In response to the crisis fall-out, the Commission proposed several structural tools to reduce risk of default among energy suppliers.

The aim of this blogpost is to highlight the potential role of existing EU insolvency and restructuring laws in mitigating energy supplier default and to explore whether their omission within the current regulatory policy is a missed opportunity for more effective enforcement.

Data Sharing Regulation in Europe: Enforcement, Governance and the Future of the EU Data Economy (A new edited volume)

Data has become one of the most critical assets of the European digital economy. From artificial intelligence and platform markets to public services and industrial innovation, access to and sharing of data increasingly determine competitive dynamics, market entry, and the effectiveness of regulation. At the same time, data sharing raises complex legal questions: how to reconcile openness with the protection of personal data, trade secrets, and intellectual property; how to prevent data-driven market foreclosure; and how to ensure that regulatory interventions foster innovation rather than stifle it.

Over the past decade, the European Union has responded to these challenges with an increasingly dense—and at times fragmented—regulatory framework. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Free Flow of Non-Personal Data Regulation, and, more recently, the Data Governance Act (DGA), the Data Act (DA), and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) have profoundly reshaped the legal landscape. Together, these instruments signal a clear policy shift: data sharing is no longer merely encouraged, but in certain contexts actively mandated as a tool to promote competition, innovation, and fairness.

It is against this background that our recently published edited volume, Data Sharing Regulation in Europe (Routledge, 2025), aims to offer a systematic and enforcement-oriented analysis of the EU data-sharing regulatory landscape.

More Power to the President? The U.S. Supreme Court is Poised to Restrict Congress’ Power to Create Independent Agencies

Since 1887, (and arguably before that), the United States Congress has created regulatory agencies with a certain degree of independence from the President. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld that model as constitutional in 1935 and again in 1958, but the current Court began to chip away at it in the last two decades. The Trump Administration has now declined to defend independent agencies and the President has fired members appointed by Democratic Presidents. Now the issue is back at the Court and its conservative majority appears to be ready to overrule its precedents and declare many or most independent agencies unconstitutional. This would transfer more power to the Presidency, at Congress’s expense, at a time when many think that office has already become too powerful.

The First Steps of the Aruban Fair Trade Authority as an Antitrust Enforcer

*A conversation with Director Kross and Dr. Wessel Geursen

Earlier this year, one of the editors of eulawenforcement.com had the chance to discuss the interesting topic of the gestation of a competition authority and the challenges it faces in its first years of existence. This issue was at the core of the event ‘Competition law enforcement overseas: an interactive discussion with the Aruba Fair Trade Authority (AFTA)’, organized by the RENFORCE Building Block ‘Public Interest Ecosystems’ (PIE) at Utrecht Law School. In what follows below, we describe some of the main takeaways of our insightful conversation with the Director of the Aruban Fair Trade Authority (AFTA) Ernesto Kross and Dr. Wessel Geursen, a competition lawyer and specialist on the territorial scope of application of EU law.

When Seeing Isn’t Believing: Deepfakes, Financial Markets, and the Limits of EU Enforcement

In finance, trust is everything, but what happens when even our eyes and ears fail us? Recent cases show this is no longer a theoretical concern. Deepfake technology, powered by neural networks trained on massive datasets, can analyze audio, video, and images to produce highly realistic impersonations and edits, creating increasingly convincing fake media. This then could be used by fraudsters to commit crime. example, in one incident, a multinational corporation lost 25 million USD after fraudsters used deepfake video technology to impersonate its CFO during a live video call. In another, British energy executive wired funds after “speaking” with someone he thought was his CEO, only to later discover the voice was synthetic. Scenarios like these are now increasingly common. In a recent article, I co-authored with Dr. Michal Lavi, “Seeing is Believing? Deepfakes in Financial Markets,” we examine this emerging phenomenon, and suggest that more preventive enforcement strategy needs to be used to address this issue.

[REPOST] From coordination to cooperation, a step change in EU competition law enforcement

As markets become increasingly cross-border, the landscape for EU competition enforcement is evolving. The review of Regulation 1/2003 offers a unique chance to take the next step: from coordination to genuine cooperation, through joint investigations and joint decisions.

Mental Accounting and Market Definition in Antitrust: How Behavioral Biases Reshape Competitive Boundaries

In the intricate world of antitrust law, the definition of a relevant market stands as a cornerstone of competition analysis, yet its foundational assumptions are increasingly being questioned. This process, which identifies the boundaries of competition between firms, has traditionally relied on the model of a rational consumer. However, the growing body of knowledge in behavioral economics challenges this paradigm, a shift now formally acknowledged by regulators.

Practitioner Networks complementing the Compliance Assurance Toolkit in EU environmental law

EU environmental law forms the foundation of approximately 80% of all national environmental regulations. At the same time, national authorities are struggling with significant difficulties in enforcing EU environmental law, one reason being that violations of environmental law rarely involve infringements of subjective rights. Therefore, in the environmental sector, the EU institutions need to play a crucial role in ensuring compliance with EU law by using or providing supranational compliance assurance instruments.