On 6 October 2015, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in a case concerning rebates and when they fall foul of EU competition law. Background The case concerns Post Danmark and, unlike appeals against European Commission Decisions, came by way of a reference from the Danish High Court seeking formal guidance on the interpretation…
Co-authored by Patrick Harrison and Lara Kaplan, Sidley Austin LLP. The European Commission (“Commission”) introduced its settlement procedure for cartel cases back in 2008.[1]Commission Regulation (EC) No 662/2008 of 30 June 2008 amending Regulation No 773/2004, as regards the conduct of settlement procedures in cartel cases (OJ 2008 L171) (“the Settlements Notice”). The main aims? …
What and when? The Commission has adopted amendments to a number of its key procedural rules in order to bring them into line with the EU Directive on Damages Actions, which was adopted in 2014 and must be incorporated into the national law of EU Member States by 27 December 2016. The amendments focus on…
Standards lie at the heart of the digital economy – without standards, we would not have smartphones, tablets and other key parts of modern life. Europe’s highest court recently delivered a judgment in Huawei v. ZTE[1]Judgment of the Court of Justice of 16 July 2015 in Case C‑170/13, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd v. ZTE Corp….
It is never a good sign when an advocate general’s opinion warns the European Court of Justice (ECJ) not to be swayed by “ephemeral trends” or the “Zeitgeist” of economic analysis, but instead to stick to the “legal foundations on which the prohibition of abuse of a dominant position rests in EU law”. Advocate General…
On 9 July 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“ECJ”) issued an important judgment[1]Case C-231/14P – InnoLux v European Commission, judgment of 9 July 2015. concerning the basis on which cartel fines by the European Commission should be calculated for vertically integrated companies. The judgment endorses the power of the European Commission…
The Court of Justice of the European Union has now delivered its judgment in the Deutsche Bahn[1]Case C-583/13P – Deutsche Bahn and others v European Commission, judgment of 18 June 2015. case. This case concerns important practical principles which govern the conduct of European Commission dawn raids (on-the-spot surprise inspections used to investigate possible infringements…
Earlier this month, Advocate General Wahl delivered his opinion in the Deutsche Bahn[1]Case C-583/13P – Deutsche Bahn and others v European Commission (ECLI:EU:C:2014:2365), Opinion of Advocate General Wahl, 12 February 2015. case. This case concerns important practical principles which govern the conduct of European Commission dawn raids (on-the-spot surprise inspections used to investigate possible infringements…
In April 2014, just before the elections, the European Parliament approved in first reading the draft Commission Regulation on the Telecoms Single Market Regulation (“TSM” or “Connected Continent”). One of the provisions covered net neutrality, shortening the list of “exceptional” cases in which ISPs could block or slow down on-line content. Moreover, such “traffic management…
Inductive reasoning is sometimes explained by using either the ‘duck test’ (“if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”) or the ‘elephant test’ (“it is difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it”). In EU competition law, it sometimes…
