The majority of approved aid was aimed at promoting objectives of common European interest, such as research, development and innovation, regional cohesion or environment protection. In addition, in 2010 saw a near-record amount of fines imposed on companies for operating price-fixing and market-sharing cartels.

The recently published European Commission's 2010 Report on Competition Policy includes an overview of the major developments of competition policy and enforcement over the past four decades to mark the 40th anniversary of the Annual Report on competition policy.

The report also highlights the new rules adopted in 2010 on both horizontal and vertical agreements, i.e., for agreements between companies operating at the same and at different levels of the supply chain. The new rules allow companies with limited market power to freely decide how their products are distributed, provided their agreements do not contain price-fixing or other hardcore restrictions (vertical agreements). The Commission leaves companies maximum freedom to cooperate while protecting competition from cooperation that would harm consumers in violation of Article 101 of the EU Treaty (horizontal agreements). The Commission also adopted new rules in the insurance field and for agreements between car manufacturers and their authorised dealers, repairers and spare parts distributors aligning competition policy in sales market to the general regime applicable to other sectors and creating the conditions for more competition in the after-sales market.

With regard to the fight against cartels, the Commission fined 70 companies nearly €3 billion in seven cartel decisions last year. These included the first cartel settlements which have the benefit of concluding investigations more quickly and free up resources for other probes. Furthermore, important decisions were also taken in the field of antitrust in several sectors. In the transport sector, the decision in the oneworld alliance case included binding commitments by British Airways, American Airlines and Iberia ensuring that around 2.5 million passengers continue to benefit from a choice of frequencies and competitive prices on certain routes.

On the other hand, the Commission concluded several cases of abuses of dominant market positions in key sectors for consumers, such as pharmaceuticals and health, energy or information and communications technologies. In November 2010, the Commission opened an investigation against Google over allegations of antitrust violations. Regarding merger control, the Commission adopted 270 merger decisions, of which 16 required the parties to amend their proposed merger plans.