At face value, it should be very simple for companies to spot that they are infringing competition law if they are working with their competitors to set prices, or if they are dictating draconian sales terms to customers to corner a market they already predominantly control. A laughably low corporate tax rate of 0.005 percent should also be a good indicator that the company is effectively receiving state aid.
But time and again, the European commissioner in charge of competition policy is surprised to find that some of the world’s biggest and most respected companies are either unaware of how their actions violate even the most basic concepts of competition law or think that they may get away with breaking the rules.
