Actual Competitor

Note: a description about Actual competitor is also available in the Competition Law Portal of the European Encyclopedia of Law.

Actual competitor in the European Antitrust Law

Meaning of Actual competitor provided by the “Glossary of terms used in EU competition policy” (European Commission. Directorate-General for Competition. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, cop. 2002): Firm which is either currently active on the same relevant market as the company under investigation, or which is able to switch production to the relevant products and market them in the short term without incurring significant additional costs or risks in response to a small and permanent increase in relative prices (immediate supply-side substitutability).

(See: Commission notice on the definition of the relevant market for the purposes of Community competition law (OJ C 372, 9.12.1997, p. 5).)