Entreprises Publiques, Neutralité Concurrentielle Et Droit De La Concurrence. (State Owned Enterprises, Competitive Neutrality and Competition Law)

French Abstract: Garantir la neutralite concurrentielle sur les marches sur lesquels sont en concurrence des entreprises privees et publiques est un complement indispensable, mais trop souvent ignore ou insuffisamment pris en compte, du droit de la concurrence. Sur de tels marches, en effet, la concurrence sans la neutralite concurrentielle est de nature a conduire a des distorsions dans l’allocation des ressources. Or l’absence de neutralite concurrentielle, qui peut revetir de nombreuses formes, peut avoir pour cause tant les differences de statut entre entreprises privees et publiques que le fait que l’Etat peut etre tout a la fois acteur et regulateur des marches sur lesquels il intervient par l’intermediaire d’entreprises publiques. L’analyse de la prise en compte de la neutralite concurrentielle dans un certain nombre de pays de l’OCDE revele une grande variete de situations allant de l’indifference a des regimes tres elabores de neutralite concurrentielle. L’examen de ces differentes situations, appuye par un examen de la jurisprudence en matiere de concurrence dans des secteurs recemment liberalises, revele tout a la fois la necessite et la difficulte de la tâche consistant a s’assurer ex post et au cas par cas de l’equite (et donc de l’efficacite) de la concurrence entre entreprises privees et publiques et permet de faire un certain nombre de recommandations aux Etats et aux autorites de la concurrence. English Abstract: Maintaining competitive neutrality on markets where private and public firms compete is a necessary (but often ignored) complement to competition law enforcement. Indeed on such markets, competition without competitive neutrality will result in misallocation of resources and inefficiencies. The lack of competitive neutrality, which can take many different forms, comes either from differences in the governance of public and private firms or from the fact that the government (national or local) is both the regulator of the market and one of the actors of the market through its state owned firm(s). Competitive neutrality is dealt with very differently across OECD countries. In some countries, the issue of competitive neutrality is largely ignored whereas in some other countries elaborate frameworks regarding the governance of public firms and the transparency of their accounts ensure a high degree of competitive neutrality. An analysis of these different approaches and the examination of a number of competition authority’s decisions or court’s judgements dealing with competition issues in markets where private and public firms compete show both the necessity of ensuring competitive neutrality in order to promote competition and the difficulty of the task, particularly on an ex post case-by-case basis, and allow us to make a number of suggestions to governments and to competition authorities.