The research was conducted using the official European database for case-law (EUR-Lex). Five search terms were searched for in all the documents that relate to the subject matter of ‘competition’ in EU case-law since 1957, as categorised by EUR-Lex (returning 2626 entries in total on 1 September 2011). These search terms were: ‘freedom of competition’, ‘freedom to compete’, ‘economic freedom’, ‘freedom to choose’ and ‘freedom of choice’. They were chosen as they all relate to some aspect of freedom that is relevant for competition purposes. The database includes a total of 146 entries, comprising judgments, opinions of Advocates General (AGs) and orders in which one or more of the search terms appeared. This does not correspond to the same number of cases, since there may be more than one document in the database concerning the same case. The scope of this paper’s database covers cases with subject matters falling under one or more of the substantive competition law provisions of TFEU, namely Articles 101, 102, 106 and 107 TFEU, as well as merger cases.The ESRC Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) undertakes interdisciplinary research into competition policy and regulation that has real-world policy relevance without compromising academic rigour. It prides itself on the interdisciplinary nature of the research and the members are drawn from a range of disciplines, including economics, law, business and political science. The Centre was established in September 2004, building on the pre-existing Centre for Competition and Regulation (CCR), with a grant from the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council). It currently boasts a total of 26 faculty members (including the Director and a Political Science Mentor), 4 full- and part-time researchers and 23 PhD students.

Entries in the database result from literature search for fice terms in EUR-Lex, the European database for case-law.