Jérémie Jourdan, Author at Kluwer Competition Law Blog

Abuse of dominance, Advocate General, European Court of Justice, Ex ante regulation, Judicial review, Merger control, Merger notification, Merger Thresholds, Mergers

European Court of Justice Confirms that National Authorities Can Review Ex-Post Below-Threshold Mergers Under Abuse of Dominance Rules

Katarzyna Czapracka, Jérémie Jourdan, Assimakis Komninos, Tilman Kuhn, Nina Frie (White & Case)/March 30, 2023March 28, 2023 /Leave a comment

The long-awaited European Court of Justice’s judgment in Towercast confirmed that national competition authorities (and national courts) can apply abuse of dominance rules to mergers that did not trigger EU and national merger control thresholds and were not referred to the European Commission under Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation. However, uncertainties still remain….

Abuse of dominance, European Court of Justice, European Union

EU Court of Justice Clarifies the Scope of the Essential Facilities Doctrine in Lithuanian Railways

Katarzyna Czapracka, Jérémie Jourdan, James Killick, Assimakis Komninos (White & Case) and Peter Citron (Editor) (White & Case, Belgium)/January 21, 2023January 18, 2023 /Leave a comment

On 12 January 2023, the EU Court of Justice upheld the EU General Court’s judgment imposing a fine on Lithuanian Railways for dismantling a section of the railway track. While reaffirming its essential facility case law (Bronner), the Court confirmed that the Bronner case law did not apply to the deliberate destruction of State-owned infrastructure…

European Commission, European Union, Foreign subsidies, Regulation

The EU Adopts the Long-Awaited Foreign Subsidies Regulation

James Killick, Jérémie Jourdan, Axel Schulz, Irina Trichkovska (White & Case)/December 2, 2022December 2, 2022 /Leave a comment

On 28 November 2022, the EU adopted the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, giving the European Commission powers to intervene to tackle foreign subsidies distorting competition in the EU internal market. The FSR, due to apply by mid-2023, will have a major impact on companies that engage in M&A and public tenders in the EU, and which…

Abuse of dominance, Advocate General, European Court of Justice, Four-to-three Merger, General Court of the European Union, Guidelines, Horizontal, Judicial review, Merger control, Merger notification, Merger Thresholds

ECJ Advocate General Recommends Setting Aside the CK Telecoms Judgment and Endorsing the European Commission’s Established Approach to Reviewing Mergers in Oligopolistic Markets

Mark Powell, Kasia Czapracka, Tilman Kuhn, Jérémie Jourdan, Cornelius Börner (White & Case) and Peter Citron (Editor) (White & Case, Belgium)/October 31, 2022October 31, 2022 /Leave a comment

Advocate General Kokott has found [1] that the General Court erred in law in requiring the European Commission to show anti-competitive effects of a merger with “strong probability” and that the scope of its judicial review was overly broad, notably in relation to economic evidence. Key takeaways This case will give the Court of…

Abuse of dominance, Advocate General, European Court of Justice, European Union, Merger control, Merger Thresholds, Mergers

ECJ Advocate General Opines That Non-Reportable Transactions Could Be Caught By Abuse of Dominance Rules

Jérémie Jourdan, Assimakis Komninos, Tilman Kuhn, Strati Sakellariou-Witt, Jérémie Marthan, Katarzyna Czapracka, Nina Frie (White & Case)/October 21, 2022October 20, 2022 /Leave a comment

Advocate General Juliane Kokott has proposed that the EU Court of Justice should find that competition authorities have the power to apply Article 102 TFEU to corporate transactions that are not reportable and test under that provision whether the transaction as such constitutes an abuse of a dominant position. However, a competition authority cannot in…

European Commission, Merger control, Remedies, Standard of Proof

Lessons from the EU General Court’s recent rejections of two appeals of merger prohibitions (Wieland, Thyssenkrupp)

Jérémie Jourdan, Strati Sakellariou-Witt, Tilman Kuhn, Katarzyna Czapracka, Fanny Abouzeid, Giulio Preti (White & Case)/September 19, 2022September 19, 2022 /Leave a comment

On 18 May and 22 June 2022, the EU General Court upheld two European Commission prohibition decisions. Both judgments endorsed the European Commission’s assessment of the mergers at issue, recognising a broad margin of discretion in the European Commission’s evaluation of the concentrations’ effects and the remedies. Key takeaways The EU General Court (“GC”)…

Abuse of dominance, As Efficient Competitor, Economics, Effects-based, Fundamental rights, General Court of the European Union, Procedures

EU General Court quashes Qualcomm antitrust fine for “exclusivity payments”, and censures the EU Commission for multiple due process and substantive errors

James Killick, Assimakis Komninos, Jérémie Jourdan, Iakovos Sarmas (White & Case)/June 21, 2022June 21, 2022 /Leave a comment

The General Court of the European Union delivered a blow to the European Commission in fully annulling its Qualcomm (exclusivity payments) decision of 2018 and a EUR 997 million fine. Qualcomm v Commission[1] is the first annulment of an Article 102 TFEU decision adopted by Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. The judgment is notably based on the…

European Union, General Court of the European Union, Gun jumping, Merger control

EU General Court confirms EC decision fining Canon €28 million for gun jumping in warehousing scheme

Jérémie Jourdan, Katarzyna Czapracka, Axel Schulz, Tilman Kuhn (White & Case) and Peter Citron (Editor) (White & Case, Belgium)/May 31, 2022May 30, 2022 /Leave a comment

On 18 May 2022, the EU General Court (the “GC”) upheld the European Commission’s (the “EC”) €28 million fine imposed on Canon for gun-jumping in the context of a (somewhat unique) so-called warehousing structure. The judgment confirms that structures such as the one at issue are not allowed under EU law without an express derogation…

European Court of Justice, Patent settlements, Pharmaceuticals, Restriction by object

The ECJ’s Lundbeck judgment offers little new on patent settlements but gives birth to an interesting principle: sector inquiries give rise to a duty of diligence

Jérémie Jourdan, James Killick, Assimakis Komninos, Tilman Kuhn (White & Case) and Peter Citron (Editor) (White & Case, Belgium)/March 26, 2021March 26, 2021 /Leave a comment

On 25 March 2021, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) dismissed all the appeals against the European Commission’s decision to fine Lundbeck and several other companies for entering into anti-competitive patent settlement agreements.1 The judgments largely repeat the position taken by the ECJ in its January 2020 Paroxetine judgment (see our alert). They notably confirm…

Dutch clause, European Commission, Merger control

Catch-22: The European Commission Keeps Broadening Merger Control Intervention Powers and Gives a Glimpse of The Future

Tilman Kuhn, Thilo Wienke, Jérémie Jourdan, Katarzyna Czapracka (White & Case)/September 18, 2020April 1, 2021 /1 Comment

A recent speech[1] by the European Commission’s (the Commission)’s Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager (the Commissioner), on the 30th anniversary of the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR), praised it as having created “a better life for everyone”, “saved customers billions of euros each year” and, in “a matter of life and death”, ensured the continuation of…