Advocate General

Advocate General, Compliance, European Court of Justice, European Union, Labour market, No-poach-agreement, Restriction by effect, Restriction by object, Sport

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Kick-off – the Tondela Opinion and its Background  On 15 May 2025, AG Emiliou delivered his Opinion on the request for a preliminary ruling submitted by the Portuguese Tribunal da Concorrência, Regulação e Supervisão in Tondela et al.  The Opinion was eagerly awaited, as it represents the first occasion on which a no-poach agreement –…

Advocate General, Antitrust, European Court of Justice, European Union, Exemptions, Justifications, Restriction by object, Sport, Sports law

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Introduction  Advocate General Emiliou delivered three interlocking Opinions concerning decisions of football governing bodies. Two of these cases were brought to challenge elements of the FIFA Football Agent Regulations (Case C-209/23, RCC Sports and Case C-428/23, Rogon). The third concerns a decision of the Portuguese Competition Authority which had found that a no-poach agreement by…

Advocate General, Damages, Disclosure, Enforcement, Leniency, Private enforcement, Procedures, Public procurement, Settlement

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The scope of the protection of leniency documents appears to be the central issue when it comes to the discussion about whether there is a conflict between private and public enforcement. AG Szpunar’s statements in the recently published Opinion (C-2/23) have now shed light on the CJEU’s possible direction for how to deal with this…

Advocate General, Ancillary, European Court of Justice, Exemptions, Market definition, Pricing

(Heinz & Zagrosek Partner mbB, Germany)/ /1 Comment

On June 6, 2024, AG Collins rendered his opinion in the referral request by the Amsterdam District Court (“ADC”) regarding price parity clauses and product market definition in the context of litigation involving Booking.com (“Booking”), the online platform acting as an intermediary between end customers and hotels, also called online travel agent (OTA).   Summary…

Advantage, Advocate General, Restriction by effect, Restriction by object, Sport

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On 30 April 2024, AG Szpunar issued his Opinion in Case C-650/22, FIFA v BZ. This gives the Court an opportunity to revisit and apply the December 2023 trilogy of sports cases decided by the Grand Chamber, which I have discussed in the Revista de Derecho Comunitario Europeo and which have been nicely contextualized by…

Advocate General, Art. 22, Merger regulation, Merger Thresholds, Mergers

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Introduction On March 21st Advocate General Emiliou handed down his Opinion in Joined Cases C-611/22P and C-625/22P, respectively Illumina Inc. v. European Commission and Grail LLC, and Illumina Inc. v. European Commission. One can argue that the Emiliou Opinion is an exercise in throwing the proverbial kitchen sink at the position of the European Commission…

Abuse of dominance, Advocate General, European Court of Justice, Google

(University of Groningen & Emile Noël Fellow at New York University School of Law)/ /Leave a comment

Interpreting and applying Article 102 TFEU – at least in all difficult cases that typically reach the courts – requires a combined reliance on both ‘reason’ and ‘fiat’. It requires reliance on ‘reason’, by which I mean substantive reasoning about how a case should be decided, because no case is exactly like any other, and…

Advocate General, Brussels Ibis, Undertaking

(Lindenbaum)/ /1 Comment

In an opinion delivered on 11 January 2024, Advocate General Szpunar concludes that the concept of ‘undertaking’ cannot be invoked to determine the parties that can be served legal documents in antitrust damages claims. He clarifies that the concept of undertaking applies to substantive competition law only – to determine the parties who may be…

Advocate General, Anticompetitive agreements, Information exchange, Restriction by object

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In October 2023, Advocate General Rantos delivered his opinion in the context of a preliminary ruling request from Portuguese courts on whether an exchange of information between competitors can constitute a restriction of competition by “object” in breach of Article 101(1) of the TFEU. In practice, such classification relieves a competition authority from the obligation…

Advocate General, Damages, Digital, National court, United Kingdom

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On 21 September 2023, Advocate General (AG) Kokott delivered an opinion on the application of limitation rules for antitrust damages actions (Opinion) in the context of a preliminary ruling reference. She invited the Court of Justice to rule, among other things, that the limitation periods may not start to run until the relevant anticompetitive conduct…