According to Wikipedia, the term “filicide” refers to a deliberate act of a parent killing their own child. As awful as that sounds, in corporate life it is pretty common for undertakings to divest, diminish, or discontinue entire product lines, services, distribution chains, or complementary divisions of work. This is often done as a response…
On 6 May 2021, the European Commission (“Commission”) published its evaluation of the Horizontal Block Exemption Regulations and the Guidelines on Horizontal co-operation agreements (“HGL”) (as reported here). The evaluation indicated that revision and clarity is needed in various areas, inter alia for sustainability agreements. The Dutch Authority for Consumer & Markets (“ACM”) announced on…
On 6 May 2021, the European Commission (“Commission”) published a staff working document (“SWD”) on its evaluation of the horizontal block exemption regulations on research & development and specialisation agreements (“H-BERs”) and the horizontal guidelines. The SWD is accompanied by an evaluation study, commissioned to provide qualitative and quantitative evidence to support the Commission’s evaluation. The findings show…
The law is blind. Competition law, however, has the potential to see through a gender lens. In World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2020, India ranked at 112th position in a list of 153 countries. According to a 2019 survey, the gender pay gap in the country was estimated to stand at 19%, where…
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Chair, Rod Sims, has announced the ACCC’s 2021 compliance and enforcement policy and priorities. The focus of the ACCC’s 2021 priorities is reflective of its: continuation of its unfinished “to do” list in a COVID-19 interrupted 2020 enduring/ongoing priorities, such as the prosecution of cartel conduct (with two to…
A February 4 conference on competition policy and the Green Deal sponsored by the European Commission’s (the Commission’s) Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP) highlighted the divergences of opinions among antitrust officials and other stakeholders on how competition policy should support sustainability objectives. DG COMP aims to take a leading role on sustainability issues; its October-November…
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…
The new competition law 27,442 enacted in Argentina in 2018 paved the way to a refreshed model of competition law in Argentina. The new law promised to create an independent National Competition Authority and the implementation of a suspensory merger control regime, among others. However, the recent change in government and the irruption of the…
Spotlight on Europe’s ‘strategic autonomy’ The calls for Europe’s ‘strategic autonomy’ or ‘strategic sovereignty’ have been gaining increasing traction in Brussels policy circles over the past few years. With its origins in the fields of defence and security, the idea of Europe’s autonomy has started to resonate beyond these areas, extending to foreign and economic…
On 13 October 2020, the European Commission (EC) published a call for contributions to gather ideas on how EU competition rules (State aid, antitrust, and merger control) and sustainability policies can best work together. The aim is to gather the widest set of views possible to determine how the competition rules should be amended (if…
