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This article discusses the judgment of the CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) of 6 September 2017 in the Intel case. It argues that the case law of the CJEU has now embraced the rule of reason for the assessment of the legality of dominant undertakings’ exclusivity rebate systems in particular, and for the analysis of exclusionary practices in general. The judgment also establishes that efficiency is the public policy behind the abuse of dominance law. This evolution of the case law is likely to produce consequences in competition enforcement, by increasing reliance on tools such as the “as efficient competitor” test, if not to make recourse to it unavoidable when the competition agency has publicly expressed a policy preference for this framework of analysis.
