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
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…
On 6 September, the EU’s highest court, the Court of Justice (CJEU), released its long-awaited decision in the Intel case, in which the Commission imposed a fine of €1.06 billion – at the time, the largest fine ever imposed by a competition regulator on an individual company. This is a very important decision in light…
I thank my friend and senior, Sahithya Murali, for meaningful suggestions on a draft of this blog. I. Introduction The car spare-parts market in India is a closed one, because car manufacturers mandate that the authorized dealers source their spare parts only from the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) or the approved vendors, and the…
Let me get this straight from the beginning. I am not a big fan of the trend among the competition authorities to introduce whistleblowing programs. For me this seems to be rather a sign of weakness and not of strength. If other available tools (and especially the leniency program) worked well there would probably be…
If AG Kokott in Post Danmark II was a 102 hawk – ordoliberal-redux, fossilizing form over function, economics on the “too difficult pile” for authorities and courts – then AG Wahl firmly sets out his stall as the 102 economics dove (§117, fn 87). Less of an opinion, more of a manifesto. It calls for…
On 20 September 2016, the European Commission (“Commission”) issued its first settlement decision under Article 102 TFEU following the introduction of Regulation 1/2003 and reduced the fine of Altstoff Recycling Austria (“ARA“) by 30% in exchange for its cooperation. ARA’s fine was thus reduced to €6 million. In addition to the press release, the Commission…
That the ECJ rejected Tomra’s appeal was unsurprising. The strictures of the EU case law on illegal rebates for dominant companies is well known. The case law of the Court takes a near per se approach to condemning any rebate scheme linked to exclusivity, substantial volume purchases or stretch targets, taking the view that by…
