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…
Introduction The recently introduced prohibition of abuse of economic dependence (Article IV.2/1 Belgian Code of Economic Law) is a novelty in Belgian law, which may become of significant importance for the digital sector. The legal concept of abuse of economic dependence is aimed to target a situation where a company abuses the relative economic dependence…
The Davies Forecast of Top 5 Trends and Issues for Canadian Competition Law in 2020 Jim Dinning, Anita Banicevic and Mark Katz Here is Davies’ annual forecast of Canadian competition law developments for the year ahead. 1. FOCUS ON THE DIGITAL ECONOMY Given the Competition Bureau’s stated priorities during the tenure of current Commissioner of…
On July 17, 2019, the German Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office, “FCO”) terminated its dominance probe into Amazon’s business terms towards sellers on its marketplace after Amazon agreed to various changes, see press release here here. Amazon will implement the changes within 30 days, not only in Germany, but for all of its marketplaces in Europe,…
The Regional office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Sverdlovsk region has recently issued a decision ordering a leniency applicant to return unlawfully gained income. The Appeal Board of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (the “FAS”) has now reconsidered this decision on appeal. Background of the case The ground for initiating the case was the…
Debate in the competition law community has intensified around the issue of enforcement in digital markets in recent months with (yet another) significant antitrust fine being levied against Google,[1]Amount of actual fine may vary the Bundeskartellamt’s Facebook decision, and (most recently) the European Commission’s Report on Competition policy for the digital era.[2]http://ec.europa.eu/competition/publications/reports/kd0419345enn.pdf The emergence of…
On 26 February 2019, the Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets (“ACM”) published renewed guidelines on both vertical and horizontal restraints. These documents are likely published to reflect the new strategy of the ACM: the stricter enforcement of vertical and horizontal restraints with a focus on vertical price fixing, online sales restraints, purchasing cartels and agreements…
EU competition policy: based on political discretion? Many would agree that Brussels’ legislative priorities guide competition policy and enforcement. Under President Juncker’s mandate, the creation of an Energy Union, a Single Digital Market, and a better functioning internal market have been at the top of the agenda. In a recent interview with the Guardian, EU’s…
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 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and two Dallas therapist staffing companies have settled charges that they conspired to fix the wages of contract therapists in violation of the federal antitrust laws. This is the FTC’s first enforcement action under its joint guidelines with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on hiring and compensation issued in 2016. …
