Abuse of dominance

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

Abuse of dominance, Advantage, Anticompetitive agreements, As Efficient Competitor, Burden of Proof, European Commission, Fines, General Court of the European Union, Google, Market definition, Tying and Bundling

(University of Mannheim)/ /Leave a comment

The long-awaited Google Android decision is out (see the press release here or the full text here). The General Court has dismissed Google’s action almost in its entirety, slightly reducing the record fine from 4.343 billion euros to (still a record) 4.125 billion euros. This post gives a very first overview of the judgment and…

Abuse of dominance, Cartels, Commitments, Competition law, India, Leniency, Merger control, Settlement

(Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan)/ /Leave a comment

The Competition (Amendment) Bill (‘Bill’) was first published for public consultation in February 2020 and it is only on 5 August 2022 that it has finally been tabled before the Indian Parliament. The Bill is a concerted effort to harmonize competition law with the evolving realities of businesses today. The Bill proposes to amend both…

Abuse of dominance, Collective Redress, Excessive pricing, Israel

(Elbert, Nazaretsky, Rakov & Co)/ /Leave a comment

At the end of July, the Supreme Court of Israel issued a judgment giving local consumers the right to submit class-action suits against dominant companies in case of exorbitantly high prices.   Background The dominant company at stake, Central Bottling, deals with the production, marketing and distribution of brands of the global Coca-Cola Company. This…

Abuse of dominance, Amazon, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, European Commission, European Union, National competition authorities (NCAs), Ne bis in idem

(University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

The final text of the DMA, after the Council’s final approval last 18th July, opened up, yet again, speculation on its enforcement. Although the Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton promptly confirmed that DG Connect would be the Directorate to apply and oversee the compliance of the DMA’s rules and obligations, several questions still…

Abuse of dominance, Arbitration, Germany, Sport

(Rosenstein & Rolf & Frohoff)/ /Leave a comment

Background More than 13 years ago, speed skater Claudia Pechstein had an abnormal blood sample, which she had to give as part of a doping control. She was subsequently banned in 2009 by the International Skating Union (ISU) for two years. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirmed this ban in 2009. According to…

Abuse of dominance, Competition law, European Union, HBER, Regulation, Supply chain, Sustainability, VBER, Vertical agreements, Vertical restraints

(European University Institute)/ /Leave a comment

In European competition law, both Article 101 and 102 TFEU inquiries require a contextual approach to the dispute at hand. Since enforcers must consider any agreement or business activity within the economic, legal, and factual context of which it forms part, regulatory regimes become important guideposts for any competition analysis. This point has been emphasized…

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

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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…

Abuse of dominance, Competition law, Data protection, European Union, Facebook, Germany, Poland, Privacy, United Kingdom

(University of Strathclyde)/ /Leave a comment

In the wake of the recent hearing of the CJEU in the German Facebook case, this post assesses two common views on the integration of competition law and privacy policy, providing a general overview of the debate we are currently facing and reflecting on its apparent future.   How privacy is relevant for competition law?…

Abuse of dominance, Data protection, Digital economy, Digital markets, European Court of Justice, Restriction by effect

(Clifford Chance LLP)/ /Leave a comment

On 12 May 2022, the European Court of Justice delivered its preliminary ruling in response to a number of questions referred to it by an Italian court tasked to assess whether the use of customer data (legitimately collected by the ENEL group during a legal monopoly position) to target offers to those same customers once…

Abuse of dominance, Advocate General, European Court of Justice, European Union, Railway, Regulation

(bpv Hügel)/ /Leave a comment

In 2017 the ECJ decided in its CTL Logistics judgment (C‑489/15, CTL Logistics, ECLI:EU:C:2017:834) that national civil courts must not examine railway charges if they fall under the competence of a railway regulator under Directive 2001/14/EC (now Directive 2012/34/EU) under equity (§ 315 German Civil Code, “BGB”). AG Ćapeta recently suggested reconsidering this case law…