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
Predatory Pricing is often described as pricing of any commodity below a suitable value for the purpose of ousting competitors in the short run and abating competition in the long run. A practice which is detrimental to both competitors and competition, the same proves to be a barrier for market growth as well. Usually, the…
In a decision released in July 2018, the Secretary of Commerce –following the recommendations of the Argentinean Antitrust Commission (CNDC) – imposed a fine worth AR$42.7 million (approximately US$1.5 million) to the Argentinean Society of Music Authors and Composers (SADAIC) for abusing its dominant position in breach of the Antitrust Law No. 27,442 (the “Antitrust…
On 13.03.2018 the Bulgarian Commission for Protection of Competition (“BCPC”) published a decision finding that the Bulgarian National Television (“BNT”) and Nurts Digital EAD – a company operating in the sector of construction of networks and facilities in the TMT sector (“Nurts”) did not commit a breach of competition law. The BCPC was seized upon…
On January 24, 2017, the European Commission announced that it had fined Qualcomm EUR 997,439,000. The Commission thinks that Qualcomm had abused its dominant position to become Apple’s sole supplier of long term evolution (“LTE“) baseband chipsets. The abuse was allegedly committed through exclusive deals, which lasted from 2011 to 2016. Baseband chipsets are key components in smartphones and tablets, which enable connection…
The Bulgarian Commission for Protection of Competition (“CPC”) has imposed fines on two out of the three integrated electricity companies in Bulgaria, part of the Austrian EVN group and the Czech CEZ group. The CPC initiated investigations against the three Bulgarian electricity distribution companies – CEZ, Energo-Pro and EVN and their affiliated end suppliers and…
On December 19, 2017, the Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) published a press release on its preliminary assessment in the ongoing Facebook dominance probe, accompanied by a background paper (available in English here). The FCO considers that Facebook abuses its dominant position through imposing unfair general terms and conditions (“t&cs”). The published materials provide some interesting…
‘Product hopping’, or ‘evergreening’, are expressions used (by antitrust authorities and industry respectively) to describe strategies employed by pharmaceutical companies to protect sales of a successful drug on the verge of losing patent protection. For example, a pharmaceutical company might introduce a new formulation of the drug before it faces significant competition from a generic…
On the 14 September, the Court of Justice of the European Union provided detailed guidance on the concept of excessive pricing under Article 102 TFEU, in response to questions posed by the Latvian Supreme Court. In Case C-177/16, the Latvian Supreme Court referred a number of questions to the Court of Justice of the European…
The GC’s decision of 14 September 2017 relates to a complaint filed with the European Commission (‘EC’) by Contact Software, a German software supplier of Product Data Management (‘PDM’). Contact Software alleged an abuse of dominance by Dassault Systèmes (‘Dassault’) and Parametric Technology Corp (‘Parametric’), as they refused to provide Contact Software with interface information…
In short: The Background: In September 2017, the European Court of Justice (Case C-413/14 P) reversed the ruling of the General Court, which had upheld the European Commission’s €1.06 billion fine on Intel for abusing its dominant position on the market for x86 central processing units. The Main Issue: The Intel case prompted much debate…
