Anticompetitive business practices in which a dominant firm may engage in order to maintain or increase its position in the market. These business practices by the firm, not without controversy, may be considered as “abusive or improper exploitation” of monopolistic control of a market aimed at restricting competition. The term abuse of dominant position has been explicitly incorporated in competition legislation of various countries such as Canada, the EU and Germany. In the United States, the counterpart provisions would be those dealing with monopoly and attempts to monopolize or monopolization of a market.
Source: OECD
On 24 July 2015 an amendment to the Bulgarian Protection of Competition Act (“PCA”) was promulgated, introducing a novel type of infringement – abuse of stronger bargaining position. Article 37a of the PCA reads as follows: Paragraph 1: “Any act or omission of an undertaking with a stronger bargaining position, which contravenes good-faith commercial practice…
In a recent judgment providing a preliminary ruling in the case, Apple Sales International et al. v. EBizcuss.com (C-595/17, October 24, 2018) (“EBizcuss.com”), the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) affirmed that jurisdiction clauses subject to EU law may be enforced by Member State courts in the context of actions for damages for abuse of dominance…
Summary On 14 March 2019, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided to close its investigation into a discount scheme by Merck Sharp & Dohme Limited (MSD).[1] The CMA concluded that there were no grounds for it to take action, since MSD’s discount strategy was not likely to limit competition in anticipation of the…
Background and main problems Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port PJSC (“NCSP”) is one of the Europe’s largest port operator in terms of cargo turnover and the leader in the Russian market. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (the “FAS”) found that NCSP abused its dominant position, by fixing and maintaining monopolistically high prices in 2015 for transshipment services…
Introduction The Supreme Court of India in its order dated 15 January, 2019 ratified the power of the Office of Director General (DG), i.e., the investigating arm of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to conduct ‘search and seizure’ operations. This order comes in light of a protracted dispute with JCB India Private Limited (JCB)….
On February 7, 2019, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) issued its long-awaited decision in the Facebook case, see press release and background paper in English here. It qualifies Facebook’s current practice of collecting and matching data of its users from third-party services/websites, including on What’sApp and Instagram, without explicit consent as an abuse of dominance. Facebook…
Antitrust enforcers are good at regularly reminding the competition law community that the various forms of abuse of dominance listed in Article 102 TFEU are not exhaustive. Indeed, the idea of what conduct falls outside “competition on the merits” is ever evolving. And this can make it difficult for practitioners to set clear lines on…
A fine of slightly above EUR 400 000 was imposed to the biggest Bulgarian telecom operator – A1 Bulgaria, member of Telekom Austria Group (“A1”) for abuse of stronger bargaining position in its contractual relationship with its former sales representative – Handy Bulgaria (“Handy”). The relationship between the two companies started back in 2005, when Handy…
The European Court of Justice (CJEU) held recently in Apple Sales International v MJA acting as liquidator of eBizcuss.com[1] that claims alleging abuse of a dominant position could come within the terms of a jurisdiction clause even where the clause did not expressly refer to claims based on competition law. Relevant Rules The rules…
The tech giant Google[1] has been under the Turkish Competition Authority’s (“TCA”) scrutiny due to its practices in the market for licensable mobile operating systems and under the judicial review since July 2015. In September 2018, the TCA has finally released its short decision and imposed a fine of TRY 93 million (approximately USD 15…
