When the EU fines a tech giant or dismantles a cartel, the legal machinery is two treaty articles that fit on a single page: Article 101 (agreements that restrict competition) and Article 102 (abuse of dominance). Together they are EU competition law's load-bearing walls — and a reliable pairing in the EU Knowledge test, because their parallel structure makes swapped-property distractors almost write themselves.
This piece extends our TFEU series — see Article 45 (free movement of workers), Article 258 (infringement) and Article 288 (legal acts).
Article 101 — the anti-cartel rule
The consolidated text (OJ C 202) prohibits as incompatible with the internal market "all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition".
Three structural points earn exam marks. First, the three forms of collusion — bilateral agreements, decisions of trade associations, and concerted practices (coordination without a formal agreement). Second, the object or effect alternative: a price-fixing cartel is prohibited by its object, no market analysis needed. Third, the cross-border filter: the practice must be capable of affecting trade between Member States — purely local restrictions belong to national law.
The illustrative list is quotable: fixing prices or trading conditions; limiting production, markets, technical development or investment; sharing markets or supply sources; discriminating between equivalent transactions; tying supplementary obligations unrelated to the contract.
The two companion paragraphs. Article 101(2): prohibited agreements are "automatically void" — a civil-law consequence, immediate and judge-independent. Article 101(3): the escape valve — the prohibition may be declared inapplicable where the agreement produces efficiencies (better production or distribution, technical or economic progress), consumers get a fair share of the benefit, and the restrictions are indispensable and do not eliminate competition. The block-exemption regulations that pepper EU business law all hang from this paragraph.
Article 102 — abuse of dominance
The mirror provision: "Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the internal market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited... in so far as it may affect trade between Member States." Its example list runs parallel to 101's: unfair purchase or selling prices; limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers; discriminatory conditions; tying.
The doctrinal heart — and the single most tested proposition in this corner of the syllabus — is what the article does not prohibit: dominance itself. Growing large by competing well is lawful; the article intervenes only when a dominant undertaking abuses that position. Any exam statement reading "Article 102 prohibits dominant positions" is false by design.
How the two articles divide the world
| Article 101 | Article 102 | |
|---|---|---|
| Targets | Collusion between undertakings | Unilateral conduct of a dominant undertaking |
| Requires | Agreement / decision / concerted practice | Dominance + abuse |
| Sanction logic | Agreement automatically void (101(2)) + fines | Conduct prohibited + fines |
| Exemption | Yes — 101(3) efficiency conditions | No equivalent paragraph |
Enforcement is shared machinery: the Commission investigates and fines (its competition arm is the reason "Brussels" is a verb in business journalism), national authorities and courts apply the same articles, and Commission decisions face review before the EU Courts under Article 263. Competition rules for the internal market are also the textbook example of an exclusive Union competence — a favourite crossover question with the competences syllabus.
What the questions in our bank actually test
If you learn one sentence from these two articles, learn Article 101(2): agreements or decisions prohibited under 101(1) are automatically void. In our own EU Knowledge bank it is not merely common — it is the answer. Of the 20 active questions built on Articles 101 and 102, 11 have "automatically void" as the substance of the correct answer, in one phrasing or another: "They are automatically void", "It is automatically void from the moment of its conclusion", "automatically void pursuant to Article 101(2) TFEU".
Three consequences worth internalising, because the distractors are built from their opposites:
- Void, not voidable. Nothing needs to be annulled, challenged or declared. The nullity operates by force of the Treaty itself, from the moment the agreement is concluded.
- No decision required. A distractor that makes nullity depend on a Commission decision, a national court judgment or a notification is wrong on the mechanism, however plausible it sounds procedurally.
- 101(3) is an exception to the prohibition, not a cure for nullity. An agreement that meets the four cumulative conditions of 101(3) is not caught by 101(1) in the first place; it is not a void agreement that gets rescued afterwards.
Article 102 is examined far less often in the bank, and when it is, it is on the distinction the article's own wording forces: dominance is not prohibited, abuse is, and there is no equivalent of the 101(3) exemption to fall back on.
As with the rest of this series, these counts describe our question bank, built from the consolidated treaty text — not EPSO's, which is not published.
The exam patterns
The dominance trap — prohibiting the position instead of the abuse. The article swap — assigning cartels to 102 or unilateral abuse to 101; anchor: 101 = several undertakings colluding, 102 = one undertaking abusing. The void detail — "an agreement contrary to 101 remains valid until annulled": false, automatically void. The exemption transplant — applying 101(3)'s efficiency defence to Article 102, which has none.
Drill the pair against free weekly EU Knowledge questions, and slot competition law into the wider map with the EPSO Preparation 2026 complete guide.
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