Introduction On 13 November 2023, the District Court of Rotterdam (“Court”) handed down its judgment in the Samsung case. This ruling gives insights on whether a supplier, by actively pursuing its resale price recommendations can be held to restrict competition by object, even if its conduct does not involve any sanctions (or threat thereof) or…

On 2 October 2023, the Dutch competition authority ACM published its decision on the objections filed by Apple on 13 July 2023 (decision on objection) against the ACM’s decision of 24 August 2021 imposing an order subject to periodic penalty payments on Apple for infringing the abuse of dominance provision laid down in Article 24…

More than three years after it published the first draft guidelines on sustainability agreements, the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) adopted a final policy rule titled ‘ACM’s oversight of sustainability agreements’ (Policy Rule). The Policy Rule aims at providing insight into how the ACM applies competition rules to sustainability agreements and how the…

The Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets (Autoriteit Consument & Markt, ‘ACM’) seems to have tuned down its antitrust enforcement activities in 2022; it did not impose a single fine for violation of the cartel prohibition or abuse of dominance but it upheld one fine in administrative appeal, i.e. the Samsung case. And of course,…

Sustainability as a policy priority It is no news that sustainability is an important topic of competition policy across the EU. There is clear consensus that competition law enforcement should be careful not to hinder cooperation between companies, even competitors, that facilitates the realisation of or progress towards reaching sustainability goals of climate policy (or…

The Dutch competition authority ACM fined Samsung Electronics Benelux B.V. (“Samsung”) € 39,875,500 for coordinating the retail prices of Samsung television sets together with various retailers. The alleged coordination took place for five years, from January 2013 through December 2018. The ACM only published a summary of the decision dated 14 September 2021 thus far, but…

The Netherlands Authority for the Consumer and Markets’ (“ACM“) announced focus on drug price developments has finally come to a tangible enforcement result: a fine of almost EUR 20 million imposed on Leadiant, manufacturer of the orphan drug CDCA-Leadiant. This penalty decision follows the announcement by the ACM in 2018, repeated in2020 and 2021, that…

On 6 May 2021, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers & Markets (“ACM”) published its updated market study (“FttH market study”) into the roll-out in the Netherlands of fibre-optic broadband networks for households (Fiber-to-the-Home). In the annex to this report, the ACM provides guidelines on how the roll-out of fibre-optic networks could be coordinated within the…

Introduction On 20 May 2020 the Dutch competition authority (“ACM”) conditionally cleared a new joint venture between transport company Pon Netherlands B.V. (“Pon”) and Dutch rail operator NS Groep N.V. (“NS”) creating a Mobility as a Service (“MaaS”) platform. The case was referred to the ACM by the European Commission (“Commission”) under Article 9 of…

This blog is written by Pauline Kuipers and Janneke Kohlen, Bird & Bird LLP Introduction The Dutch competition authority, ACM, initiated a market study in 2018 into the effect of the introduction of biosimilars on the competition between TNF alfa inhibitors. TNF-alfa inhibitors are biological medicines that are mainly used by rheumatoid arthritis patients, but…