We are now well past the mid-point of Commissioner Vestager’s tenure as European Commissioner for Competition.  Let us assume that – as with all of her predecessors, and regardless of merit – she will not be reappointed for a second term in the post, so that by the end of 2019 we will have a new Competition Commissioner.

What this means, among other things, is that if an antitrust or State aid case has not yet started, then it is in practice impossible to finish it within her term.  That means that the Commissioner’s margin of manœuvre in establishing a legacy is mostly limited to the cases that we already know about.

So what do we know about Commissioner Vestager – and can we start predicting what the next two years of competition enforcement will look like?Continue Reading The Vestager Tenure : Mid-Point or Turning Point?