Antitrust

Antitrust refers to a field of economic policy and laws dealing with monopoly and monopolistic practices. Antitrust law or antitrust policy are terms primarily used in the United States, while in many other countries the terms competition law or policy are used. Some countries have utilized the phrases Fair

Trading or Antimonopoly law. The intellectual basis for antitrust economics or policy is the sub-field of industrial organization economics which addresses issues arising from the behaviour of firms operating under different market structure conditions and the effect this has on economic performance. Most antitrust or competition laws have provisions dealing with structure such as mergers, monopoly, dominant market position and concentration, as well as behaviour, such as collusion, price fixing, and predatory pricing.

Source: OECD

Abuse of dominance, Algorithms, Antitrust, Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digitisation, Discrimination, Dominance, European Court of Justice, European Union, Evidence, Google

(University of Göttingen, Germany), (University of Vienna, Austria), and (LMU Munich)/ /Leave a comment

The recent Google Shopping ruling has already sparked much debate, and an earlier blog post offers a detailed overview of the judgment itself. Building on this, this contribution’s focus is to emphasize and discuss some aspects in the academic analysis, the judgment’s broader implications and outlook for further actions. It builds upon a recently published…

Antitrust, Europe, Labour market, Market definition

(University of Amsterdam)/ /Leave a comment

The application of competition rules to the conduct and concentrations of employers has been called ‘the new frontier for competition policy’ (see here). This so-called ‘labour antitrust’ has been growing rapidly especially on the other side of the Atlantic over the last fifteen years (see here). ‘All eyes are on labor’ in the United States…

Antitrust, Türkiye

, , (ACTECON)/ /Leave a comment

Introduction In recent years, the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) has markedly intensified its scrutiny of undertakings operating in the cosmetics sector with greater frequency, predominantly based on allegations of resale price maintenance and the restriction of online sales in this industry. In most of these investigations, the relevant undertakings have admitted the violation and applied…

Antitrust, European Court of Justice, Exemptions, Professional body

(University of Vienna)/ /Leave a comment

Let the waves (or the CJEU) carry you where the light cannot. On January 18, the CJEU delivered its judgment in the Lietuvos notarų rūmai case (C-128/21), where it dealt with the scope of the Wouters exception to the prohibition of cartels (see originally C-309/99). Here, the CJEU had to decide whether a decision of…

Antitrust, European Court of Justice, European Union, Professional body, Sport

(University of Oxford, Somerville College)/ /Leave a comment

Introduction On 21 December 2023 the Court changed its interpretation of EU competition law. The three judgments handed down that day asked as many questions as they answered, and it was obvious that further clarification would be required. Already in January 2024 two further rulings – Case C‑128/21 Lietuvos notarų rūmai, and others and Case…

Antitrust, France, Sustainability, Trade associations

(Kapellmann)/ /Leave a comment

The French competition authority, the Autorité de la Concurrence, has recently published a cartel decision (see here) which deals with a cartel of industry associations and their members with regard to product qualities and product information. The case is an important reminder to industry associations and companies of the boundaries between antitrust compliant lobbying and…

Anticompetitive agreements, Antitrust, Collusion, Economics, European Commission, Guidelines, Horizontal, Joint Bidding, Pharmaceuticals, Price fixing, Restriction by object

(Szecskay Attorneys-at-Law, Hungary)/ /Leave a comment

The European Commission’s horizontal guidelines are an invaluable tool for practitioners in antitrust compliance work. The team at Unit A1 in DG COMP have done a great job at further developing the guidelines in the new draft that was published for stakeholder comments on 1 March 2022. Today, the EU & Competition team at Szecskay…

Antitrust, Apple, Big data, Competition enforcement, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Dominance, Enforcement, Germany, Online platforms

(Heinz & Zagrosek Partner mbB, Germany)/ /Leave a comment

In January 2021, the latest reform of the German competition law (“ARC”) entered into force, including significant new rules regarding digital platform markets.  These include new powers for the Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) under Section 19a ARC regarding digital gatekeepers with paramount cross-market significance for competition (for more details on the new norm, see here). A…

Antitrust, China, Compliance, Guidelines

(Hogan Lovells, China)/ /Leave a comment

Traditionally August isn’t the busiest month for Chinese antitrust enforcement. This year is no exception. But that doesn’t mean that Chinese antitrust regulators weren’t active. On the contrary. It seems many of them used the ‘summer lull’ to work on a specific project: issuing antitrust compliance guidelines. Indeed, last month, three provincial offices of the…

Abuse of dominance, Antitrust, Cartels, Competition, Competition enforcement, Competition Law 2020, Competition policy, Concentrations, COVID-19, Damages, Digital competition, Germany, Merger control

(Heinz & Zagrosek Partner mbB, Germany)/ /Leave a comment

Despite the pandemic, 2020 has been a very busy year for the Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) and courts in the field of competition law in Germany.  The following is merely a selection of interesting developments.  It does not include the recently adopted reform of the Competition Act, which merits its own blog. Generally, the FCO…