歐美競爭法在新冠疫情期間之適用與調整

世界衛生組織（WHO）於2020年2月11日宣布正名武漢肺炎為COVID-19，並於2020年3月11日正式宣布進入全球大流行。OECD競爭委員會於2020年4月27日公布一份競爭政策因應COVID-19之報告，在2020年5月25日及26日，OECD又公布了三份相關研究報告。美國自2020年3月以來，聯邦交易委員會（FTC）就開始對COVID-19，宣示一系列的措施，並在其網站上成立了COVID-19專區，陸續發布對COVID-19有關的反托拉斯法與不公平行為執法相關的措施；某些措施也與另一個反托拉斯法執法部門美國司法部（DOJ）共同發布。從2020年3月以來，歐盟執委會也開始針對對抗COVID-19有關的競爭法執法議題，陸續發布一些反托拉斯指導原則或說明，也一樣在網站上成立了專區，陸續公告其相關的資訊。國際競爭法組織ECN和ICN也公布新冠期間適用競爭法的聯合聲明和新冠災情期間和疫後的競爭聲明。由於本疫情對各國競爭事務主管機關也是全新的挑戰，因此如何調整現有的競爭法架構與執法措施，以審慎面對本次經濟危機，是各國努力解決中可謂當前最重要的課題。

關鍵字

新冠疫情； COVID-19 ；競爭法；限制競爭；不公平競爭

並列摘要

The novel coronavirus that afflicted the world in 2020 was named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO) on February 11, 2020 and was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020. On April 27, 2020, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Competition Committee also released its competition policy responses to COVID-19 reports on May 25 and 26, 2020. Since March 2020, the United States Federal Trade Commission also set up a webpage with dedicated resources on COVID-19, as well as announced a series of measures pertaining to the enforcement of antitrust and unfair laws relating to COVID-19, a few of them which were jointly released with the United States Department of Justice. The European Commission similarly set up a dedicated COVID-19 webpage and has since March 2020 also issued guidance on competition law enforcement and approaches in response to the COVID-19 crisis. ECN and ICN also released Joint Statement on application of competition law during the Corona crisis and Steering Group Statement on Competition during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic. Since the pandemic poses as a brand new challenge to competition enforcement agencies around the world, the question of how the existing competition law structure and enforcement measures should be adjusted in order to confront the economic crisis, is the most important question for all countries to resolve.