Introduction Over the summer, the Commission published its long-awaited draft Article 102 Guidelines (‘draft GL’) for comments.[1] The stated intention of the Commission is to base the Guidelines on the case law of the Union Courts (§9). The stated goals of the Guidelines are to allow a vigorous and effective application of Article 102, but…
The European Commission has published for public consultation its long-awaited draft Guidelines on exclusionary abuses (draft Guidelines). The draft Guidelines aim at making it faster and easier for the Commission to pursue abuse of dominance cases, in particular by classifying a number of practices as “presumptively harmful”. This represents a marked departure from the 2008…
In May 2024, the Danish Parliament adopted a major overhaul of the Danish Competition Act, including introducing higher fines, a new competition tool, and a merger call-in option, effective from 1 July 2024. In particular, the call-in option will have drastic consequences, and in the future all mergers involving Danish activities could potentially become notifiable….
May 2nd, 2024 was the last day to submit comments to the Public Consultation (Economic and Competitive Aspects of Digital Platforms) held by the Brazilian Ministry of Finance. The Consultation, which was released on January 19, 2024 and had one deadline extension, was designed and organized by the Secretary for Economics Reforms – one of…
As it marked the 30-year anniversary of the Single Market, the European Council asked former Italian Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, to set out his vision for the future of the Single Market including specific proposals for its development. Letta published his report last month which, he writes, is based on 400 stakeholders’ meetings in 65…
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) focus significantly on reducing inequalities globally (see, for example Goal 10 of UN SDG). Social inequality across the globe is premised on various parameters, including gender, race, income, religion and ethnicity. For instance, UN Women highlighted that women globally make around 77 cents for every dollar made by…
Introduction On Wednesday 25 October 2023, the General Court of the European Union ruled in Case T-136/19 on the application of the prohibition of abuse of dominance under Article 102 TFEU. The judgment concerns the annulment of a Commission decision condemning Bulgarian gas holding company BEH and subsidiaries for an unauthorised refusal of access. The…
With its decision issued on 30 March 2023 (Storytel Decision), the Turkish Competition Authority (TCA) evaluated Storytel Turkey Yayıncılık Hizmetleri A.Ş.’s (Storytel) claim that some documents obtained during on-site inspections were covered by attorney-client privilege. This post presents a comparative analysis of the TCA’s approach regarding attorney-client privilege presented in the Storytel decision and the…
On 9 October 2023, the European Commission (EC) issued four templates on its official website pertaining to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Each of them deals with a different provision enshrined in the regulatory framework. First of all, the European Commission published its updated Template for Reporting pursuant to Article 11 of the DMA following…
The Swiss government aims at a partial revision of the Swiss Cartel Act. Now that the consultation process is completed, the Federal Council has unveiled its draft legislation. The revision aims at modernizing merger control and strengthening private damage litigation. The draft legislation remarkably also provides for a re-introduction of the effects test for hardcore…
