Abstract

The long-awaited Court of Justice's ruling in the Intel case finally came on 6 September: the Court's dictat was a partial annulment of the ruling previously issued by the General Court of the European Union, which now will have to re-examine the pleas put forwards by Intel in light of the principles expressed - in a quite shy and enigmatic way - by the Court of Justice. The ruling has already been welcomed by the first commentators and by industry operators as a «new chapter» in the attitude of European Courts approaching not only rebate systems, but also - likely - all those conducts scrutinized by the Commission under Article 102 Tfeu. What clearly emerged is a new impetus towards the need of an antitrust economic analysis. However, it cannot be forgotten the grey area which has been left by the Court of Justice as regards certain practical aspects of the story. Even if, on one hand, it is possible to extrapolate from the ruling certain «disruptive» guidelines, on the other hand there are still some questions which remain (at least temporarily) unanswered.