On 5 December 2016, the National Development and Reform Commission (“NDRC“) – one of the three Chinese antitrust authorities – issued its decision fining the local unit of Medtronic, a U.S.-listed medical device maker, for resale price maintenance (“RPM“). Case summary Medtronic was found to maintain a distribution system for cardiovascular, rehabilitation therapy and…
On October 22, Astana (Kazakhstan) hosted the International Conference “Industrial Competition Advocacy in the EAEU cross-border markets”, where issues related to the antitrust regulation in the EAEU were discussed. One of the most important issues in the competition area of the EAEU development is the establishment of regulatory framework for the EAEU antitrust regulation and…
By Daniel Schwarz, Clifford Chance, and Mark Katz, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg Introduction With the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) having finally been signed by the EU and Canada on October 30, 2016, it’s worth exploring what it says about competition law and policy and how it may impact these issues on both…
When discussing mergers, both Commission officials and private practitioners often characterise these as a “N to N-1”. We all regularly talk and hear about “6-to-5s”, “5-to-4s”, “4-to-3s”, “3-to-2s”, and even “2-to-1s”. This blog discusses the growing view that within the Commission, a “4-to-3 or fewer” distinction has become a corridor-talk presumption of anti-competitive effects. On…
On 1 December 2016, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) obtained a novel “disqualification undertaking” from Daniel Aston, the managing director of online poster supplier Trod Limited, whereby Mr Aston agreed not to act as a director of a UK company for five years. Trod had previously been fined £163,371 for agreeing with a…
The second part of the blog on the FCO’s background paper on “Competition and Consumer Conduct – Conflict or Parallelism between Consumer Protection and Antitrust Law?” covers the interplay between consumer and competition protection and their legal tools in practice, including recent and potential future developments. (For the first part on the general principles please…
On 28 November 2016, the Hong Kong Competition Commission (“HKCC“) published an advisory bulletin calling upon the Hong Kong Institute of Architects and the Hong Kong Institute of Planners to take appropriate action to remove or amend certain provisions in their respective codes of conduct which raised competition concerns. While such associations, as statutory bodies,…
On 28 November 2016 the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMC) launched public consultations on the draft Horizontal Merger Guidelines. The AMC invites to submit comments to the draft by 7 December 2016. The draft Guidelines, prepared in cooperation with the Competition Council of the Republic of Lithuania, Bundeskartellamt and the US Federal Trade Commission, are modelled after…
On 4 November 2016, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (“SAIC“) – one of China’s antitrust authorities – published on its website three decisions, whereby three payment encryption device suppliers were fined by SAIC’s branch in Anhui Province (“Anhui AIC“). Payment encryption devices are used by bank customers to protect the security of payments…
Introductory remarks Following such landmark cases as Ryanair,[1] EDF[2] and ING,[3] one may observe a truly impressive expansion and development of the MEIP. While the EU Courts have (finally) drawn attention to the question of the applicability of the MEIP, the Commission and ESA often have had to decide on quite novel and complex issues…
