On November 9th 2023, the Advocate General (“AG”) Pitruzzella published his Opinion on the Apple state aid case. More specifically, in Commission v Ireland & Apple (Case C‑465/20 P), the AG proposed to the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) that it annul the General Court’s (“GC”) ruling in the Apple case, refer the cases back…

In 2021, an insightful interviewer asked Margrethe Vestager, EU Commissioner for competition law and policy, whether it was “time for a feminist antitrust policy”. The interviewer noted that “feminist policy has been used to denote not just gender equality, but an approach that is more inclusive of all underrepresented people”. In her answer, Vestager set…

Thank you for another wonderful and eventful year in competition law and policy. Our readership grew and so did the ideas and exchanges on competition law. It is exciting to see the blog progress and your knowledge spread across the world. In 2023, the ten most read blogposts were: Deployers of High-Risk AI Systems: What…

Introduction On Wednesday 25 October 2023, the General Court of the European Union ruled in Case T-136/19 on the application of the prohibition of abuse of dominance under Article 102 TFEU. The judgment concerns the annulment of a Commission decision condemning Bulgarian gas holding company BEH and subsidiaries for an unauthorised refusal of access. The…

On June 23, 2023, amendments to the Canadian Competition Act (Act) took effect which now  make it a per se criminal offence for unaffiliated employers to agree, conspire or arrange to: “Fix, maintain, decrease or control salaries, wages or terms and conditions of employment” (wage-fixing agreements); or “Not solicit or hire each other’s employees” (no-poach/non-solicit…

The Swiss government aims at a partial revision of the Swiss Cartel Act. Now that the consultation process is completed, the Federal Council has unveiled its draft legislation. The revision aims at modernizing merger control and strengthening private damage litigation. The draft legislation remarkably also provides for a re-introduction of the effects test for hardcore…

            On 20 April 2023 the EU Commission adopted a new legislative package aimed at simplifying its procedures for reviewing transactions under EU merger control rules. Under the new rules the Commission seeks to assess more cases under the simplified procedure and reduce overall reporting requirements by 25%. The new…

The last few weeks have been momentous for Indian competition law – the Competition (Amendment) Act, 2023 (Amendment) received Presidential assent on 11 April 2023, after it was passed by both houses of the Indian Parliament. The lead-up to this moment was almost five years in the making. The Amendments are a product of extensive…

Introduction Ride-hailing apps are present practically in every country from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). In places like Colombia and Brazil, they entered the market as early as 2013 – 2014 respectively, according to research authored by Resende and Lima. Apps like Uber, Cabify and Didi have emerged and generated pressure on the traditional…

You’ve probably all seen the terror ChatGPT has unleashed on white collars, from research analysts to copywriters, over the past two months. What about lawyers, economists, or paralegals working in competition law? Let’s summarise for those who haven’t heard yet: ChatGPT is a chatbot created by OpenAI. It became the fastest-growing app in history, reaching…