Book Reviews Ortiz Blanco, Luis and Ben Van Houtte. EC Competition Law in the Transport Sector. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Pp. 288. This book by Luis Ortiz Blanco and Ben Van Houtte offers an extremely useful guide to the law of the European Union in the transport sector for scholars and, above all, practitioners of EC competition law in this sector. The book offers a rigorous, clear and thorough description of the main developments which have taken place in this sector almost from the time of the creation of the European Communities. The authors, staff members of the European Commission (Transport Division of DG IV – Competition Policy) demonstrate a sound command of the legal material, the cases before the Court of Justice, and legal doctrine, as well as an in-depth knowledge of the inside story on the policy outcomes they describe. The work is divided into seven chapters, each of which gives a detailed account of the particular competition law developments that have arisen in the Community’s various transport sector areas (inland, air, maritime transport) in terms of their competition rules. However, the first, second, and final chapters are more general in character. Moreover, one senses the lack of a brief introductory chapter, in which the authors might have expounded the objective of their work. This criticism aside, each chapter is systematically structured. Overall, therefore, the reader gains a good general picture of the law as it stands in this sector of Community competence. Despite its significant virtues, the book deserves more cautious assessment from a methodological perspective. With the exception of perhaps the first and last chapters, the remainder of the book is but a summary of legislation, cases and legal doctrine. The authors give no clues to assist readers’ understanding of the complex dynamics present in the Community transport sector, which would then provide a point of reference against which legal developments could more precisely be evaluated. At best, when the authors finally criticize a particular issue, it is done simply in terms of legal coherence and practicality (e.g., at 53). The book also gives the impression that the history of EC competition policy in the transport sector is very much one of a ‘good guys, bad guys’ classical dichotomy; as a result, the book reaches some hasty and bold conclusions at many points. For instance, it states that the failure to establish less cumbersome procedural rules for the implementation of the EC competition laws in the transport sector is due to ‘the Member States’ opposition to accepting the complete and immediate applicability of the competition rules to transport’ (at 263), despite, of course, the Commission’s continuing efforts to this end. Nevertheless, the book provides a valuable tool, a complete and well-structured overview of Community competition rules for the transport sector. No doubt the picture presented could have been improved by broadening the book’s scope to include the social, economic and political elements underpinning the legal developments in this area. Even with a focus on the purely descriptive, this would have made the overall result more lively. Antonio Estella de Noriega Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
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