The rule of reason under Article 82 EC After Sot Lelos kai Sia

Using Sot. Lelos kai Sia as a starting point, the main purpose of this paper is to investigate the trend of application of the rule of reason under Article 82 EC with respect to a refusal to supply in the European Union (EU) pharmaceutical market. In addition, some procedural issues deriving from this case and Syfait shall be analyzed in the beginning. In the light of that purpose, section 2 of this paper considers procedural concerns raised by those two cases with regard to the functioning of Regulation 1/2003. Section 3 then examines the application of the rule of reason under Article 82 EC to refusal to supply both before and in Sot. Lelos kai Sia. Moreover, section 4 identifies the issues which are still left open by this case. Next, section 5 considers potential developments towards a full fledged rule of reason under Article 82. Finally, section 6 draws implications for the pharmaceutical industry.