The England and Wales Court of Appeal has overturned the Decision of the United Kingdom Competition Appeals Tribunal (CAT) in the collective proceedings Walter Merricks v MasterCard, where final consumers are represented by Merricks. This is an important decision because it ensures that financial damages are recoverable when a firm’s anti-competitive practices affect millions of…
On 16 January 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU” or “Court”) dismissed the European Commission’s appeal against the annulment of its decision to prohibit the acquisition of TNT by UPS. The CJEU stressed the importance of respecting companies’ rights of defence as regards economic analysis and methodology used in merger control….
On September 4, 2018, the German Ministry for Economic Affairs has published a report by economic and legal experts analyzing some key issues of abuse of market power in the digital platform economy (see an English summary here.) The report provides an overview of the status quo and recommendations, and is understood to be the…
The National Company Law Tribunal (hereinafter ‘NCLAT’) on September 19, 2018, passed an order which set aside the penalty of 87 crores imposed on Hyundai Motor India Limited by the Competition Commission of India.[1]Hyundai Motors India Limited v Competition Commission of India, Competition Appeal (AT) No 6/2017. One of the primary reasons for the penalty…
The discussion on the merit and feasibility of a possible application of Behavioural Economics in Competition Law and Policy has been fierce, particularly so in the context of US Antitrust Law. The fundamental assumption of Behavioural Economics lies in the recognition that human decision making is vulnerable and subject to biases. So-called neo-classical economic models…
Economics has an increasingly important role in merger assessment. Hardly anyone can imagine trying to build a solid major merger case anymore without paying at least some attention to the indirect evidence gained from analyzing the set of indicative economic factors of the case at hand. Whilst there are differences e.g. between different NCA’s and…
“In appropriate cases, DG Competition may discuss in advance with the addressees or other affected parties the scope and the format of the Data Request. DG Competition may also explain the analysis that it intends to perform with the requested data in order to improve the efficiency of the data collecting process and to ensure…
