What a difference five years make. In 2019, the European Union (EU) created a modest common framework for foreign direct investment (FDI) screening, Regulation 2019/452 (the FDI Regulation), stressing that decisions on proposed investments, and even the decision whether to engage in FDI screening at all, remained with EU Member States. A pandemic and two…

Antitrust authorities around the globe are debating how best to assess sustainability agreements, i.e., agreements to achieve environmental objectives.  In the space of a few months in 2023, three leading regulators – the EU Commission, the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets, and the UK Competition and Markets Authority adopted guidance on the antitrust assessment…

The European Commission’s third annual report (the Report) on experience with Regulation 2019/452 (as amended, the FDI Regulation) reflects the growing importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) screening in the European Union (EU).  Together with a staff working document, the Report provides valuable insights into the FDI Regulation’s practical impact and the Commission’s role in FDI screening…

European Union and United States legislators are increasingly concerned about the potentially distortive effects “foreign” subsidies may have on M&A transactions. EU and US authorities are both poised to require transaction parties to provide extensive information to allow authorities to evaluate subsidies granted by other jurisdictions. How do these initiatives compare, and how will the…

The EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) gives the European Commission (the Commission) broad powers to investigate and remedy distortions of the European Union (EU) internal market caused by non-EU subsidies and subjects significant acquisitions and public tenders to a new EU notification and approval regime. The Commission’s publication of an implementing regulation (the Implementing Regulation)…

The European Commission (the Commission) has launched a project to codify EU law on the application of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to exclusionary abuses of dominant positions, such as exclusive dealing, tying and bundling, predatory pricing, refusals to supply and margin squeezes. The Commission published a…

The European Union’s (EU’s) new Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR), entered into force on January 12, 2023.  The FSR creates a unique new quasi-antitrust regime to combat distortions of competition in the EU internal market caused by subsidies multinationals receive outside the EU.  It imposes new mandatory notification and approval requirements for acquisitions of significant EU…

On 10 January 2023, the European Commission (Commission) published Draft guidelines on the application of a new EU antitrust exemption for sustainability agreements involving producers of agricultural products (the Draft Guidelines).  Article 210a of Regulation (EU) 1308/2013 (CMO Regulation), which entered into effect in early 2022, exempts restrictions of competition in agreements that are indispensable…

On September 6, 2022, the European Commission (Commission) announced that it had prohibited the acquisition by Illumina Inc., a U.S company supplying sequencing- and array-based solutions for genetic and genomic analysis, of Grail LLC, another U.S. company that develops blood tests for the early detection of cancers, under the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR).  Grail has…

Regulation 2019/452 (as amended, the FDI Regulation) inserted the European Commission (the Commission) into a hitherto jealously guarded area of EU Member State authority – screening of foreign direct investment (FDI) for threats to security and public order.  The FDI Regulation sets out minimum requirements for Member States’ FDI screening regimes and a mechanism for…