Five years ago the first edition of this book established itself as the most readable, and one of the most perceptive, expositions of EC competition law. This new edition, which states the law as at 1 March 1992, maintains both the format and the quality of its predecessor. The first five chapters (pp. 1–73) contain what is probably the best account in English of the drafting of Arts. 85 and 86 and Regulation 17, and of the experience of the Commission in the early years of the competition policy, which led to the framing of the first group exemptions. This part of the text has remained virtually unchanged from the first edition.

The second part of the book (pp. 77–474) is much amended. It succeeds admirably in achieving the aims of the Oxford European Community Law series, of which this monograph is part, which are to provide a “clear, concise and critical exposition of the law in its social, political and economic context”. The chapters proceed from an analysis of the elements of Art. 85 to a discussion of that Article’s operation in specific contexts. Separate chapters are devoted to a range of topics of great practical importance: defensive cartels; specialization and R & D agreements; joint ventures; exclusive distribution and purchasing; selective distribution and purchasing; and price maintenance and other vertical restraints. The exercise and licensing of intellectual property rights, regulated as much by Arts. 30–36 of the Treaty as by the competition policy, are treated in two further chapters. Article 86 receives a similar treatment, moving from a general account of the concept of dominance to discussions of abuse in the context of refusals to deal and discriminatory pricing, excessive pricing, discounts and rebates, and the exercise of intellectual property rights. A short chapter attempts valiantly to make sense of the overlap between Arts. 85 and 86 in the light of Italian Flat Glass and Tetrapak.

Mergers and the activities of trade associations have their own chapters; two more chapters deal with the relationship between community law and national law, including a brief discussion of the position of public undertakings; and the final chapter in Part II discusses the extraterritorial reach of EC competition law and the relationship between the competition policy and the EC’s international trade policies. Part III (pp. 477–515) consists of two chapters offering an appraisal of the past 35 years of EC competition law, and an assessment of the main challenges now facing the EC in this field. The book closes with a helpful selective bibliography and an index.

Unusually, and no doubt as a consequence of Dan Goyder’s dual role as Deputy Chairman of the U.K. Monopolies and Mergers Commission and academic teaching at the universities of Essex and London, this book is likely to be appreciated as much by practitioners as by students and teachers. The clarity of the explanation of the aims and principles underlying key regulations and decisions instills a real “feeling” for EC competition law which should give the attentive reader much confidence in handling problems which are not covered directly by existing precedents. And as far as librarians are concerned, the book falls quite clearly into the “necessary”, rather than the “desirable”, category.