The Swedish Competition Authority is a member of the ECN. The rules governing cooperation between the members of the ECN (the national competition authorities of all the EU Member States and the European Commission) are laid down in EC Council Regulation 1/2003 (Reg. 1/2003), as well as the European Commission Notice on cooperation within the Network of Competition Authorities (Network Notice).   As EU national competition authorities have, together with the European Commission, the right to apply Article 101 (prohibition against anti-competitive agreements) and 102 (prohibition against abuse of a dominant position) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), an important underlying rationale for the ECN-framework is to ensure that these provisions are applied effectively and uniformly throughout the EU.   The cooperation steps which concern the relationship between the Commission and individual NCAs are for the most part formulated as obligations (e.g. the obligation of the Commission to send to NCAs copies of the most important documents in antitrust investigations and the corresponding obligation on NCAs to inform the Commission of the initiation of investigations, as well as to provide the Commission with a draft of the envisaged decision). When it comes to co-operation between NCAs, ECN-rules are of a permissive rather than binding character. For example, an NCA may share with other NCAs the same type of information regarding its investigations pursuant to Articles 101 and 102 as it is obliged to provide to the Commission. In practice, however, the difference is very small as agencies do their best to accommodate the requests of other NCAs.  It is important to note that Reg. 1/2003 is directly applicable in the legal systems of the EU Member States, which means that the national rules of the Member States have been adapted to allow NCAs to provide assistance/cooperate with their counterparts in the EU.