171It is stated in footnote No 9 in the Guidelines on cooperation agreements that ‘[a] firm is treated as a potential competitor if there is evidence that, absent the agreement, this firm could and would be likely to undertake the necessary additional investments or other necessary switching costs so that it could enter the relevant market in response to a small and permanent increase in relative prices’. Moreover, ‘[t]his assessment has to be based on realistic grounds, the mere theoretical possibility to enter a market is not sufficient’. It is also stated that ‘[m]arket entry needs to take place sufficiently fast so that the threat of potential entry is a constraint in the market participants behaviour’ and that, ‘[n]ormally, this means that entry has to occur within a short period’. In that regard, the Commission refers to a period of one year while stating that ‘in individual cases longer time periods can be taken into account’ and that ‘[t]he time period needed by companies already active in the market to adjust their capacities can be used as a yardstick to determine this period’.
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