Cartels and Restrictive Agreements Policy and Procedure Revised Settlement Guidelines On 6 November 2023, the AFCA published revised settlement guidelines. Based on these revised guidelines, the AFCA will apply a settlement discount of up to 15% (compared to 20% under the previous settlement guidelines of 2004). In addition, the revised settlement guidelines expressly recognise the…
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) introduced an innovative framework aimed at promoting contestability and fairness in digital markets. In addition to imposing a multitude of substantial obligations on gatekeepers, the DMA incorporates a sophisticated and multi-faceted enforcement system. The European Commission assumes the primary role as the enforcer of the DMA, while the Member States…
Introduction On 6 November 2023, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (“FCA“) published its updated standpoint on settlements. The original standpoint dates back to 2014. Shortly after the first settlement at the European level had taken place in 2010, Austria had its first settlement in the “brewery case” in 2012. This was quickly followed by a…
Cartels Legal Framework and Procedure Guidance on the Reduction of Fines In January 2022, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority published guidance on the reduction of fines under the Austrian leniency programme, which applies to undertakings that do not qualify for full immunity. The substantive conditions for immunity and leniency in Austria and the applicable fine…
On 1 June 2022, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (‘FCA’) published its draft Sustainability Guidelines (‘Guidelines’) to provide guidance for assessing ecological/environmental sustainability agreements under the new sustainability exemption recently introduced in Austrian antitrust law (§ 2 para 1 of the Austrian Cartel Act). Background The new sustainability exemption was introduced by the Austrian…
I. Cartels Legal Framework and Procedure In November 2021, Austria adopted a regulation on certain procedural aspects of leniency applications.[2] The regulation sets out the required content of leniency and immunity applications, the possibility to request a marker, and the possibility to submit a short form application in case the applicant has already submitted an…
On 10 September 2021, certain significant changes to Austria’s competition law entered into force, although some of the merger control related changes will apply only as of 1 January 2022: Merger control. The amendments include a revision of Austria’s revenue-based merger control threshold, the introduction of the significant lessening of competition test, and a broadening…
According to a recent press release by the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (AFCA), in the course of a general market and media monitoring AFCA became aware of the merger between the two US-based companies Facebook and GIPHY, which took place in May 2020, and consequently initiated investigations based on suspicion of a violation of the standstill…
Antitrust lawyers often work under time pressure when assessing the relevant thresholds to determine where a merger filing must be submitted. They usually keep the requests concerning turnover to a minimum, because turnover is generally attributed to where the customer is located. However, if the parties are not familiar with the geographic allocation rules under…
On May 14, 2018, the German and Austrian competition authorities have published joint draft guidelines on the new transaction value merger thresholds, including an English translation (see here). Comments can be submitted by June 8, 2018. It would certainly be helpful if members of the legal and economic community from jurisdictions with similar transaction size…
