The Commission has followed a Long and Winding carbon-free Road since only a few years ago when it seemed to favour the Status Quo and promoted a robust competitive process as the best way to guarantee sustainable outcomes for consumers. The final chapter on Sustainability Agreements in the EU Horizontal Guidelines clearly shows a Commission…
On 6 June 2023, the European Commission launched for public consultation its Template for Reporting pursuant to Article 11 of the DMA (the Template). The Template builds upon the substance of Article 11 of the DMA, which mandates designated gatekeepers (yet to come in early September): i) to provide the Commission with a report describing…
On 1 June 2023, the European Commission (‘Commission’) adopted the new Horizontal Guidelines (together with the new Horizontal Block Exemption Regulations), which contain a new dedicated chapter for the assessment of sustainability agreements. The new Horizontal Guidelines will enter into force following their publication in the Official Journal of the EU (while the new Horizontal…
The DMA will start to apply on March 2024. Starting on the 2nd of May, the gatekeepers have a maximum of two months to notify their gatekeeper status to the European Commission (EC). The European Commission (EC) has acquired the compromise to make the process of the DMA’s future implementation, monitoring and oversight of compliance as…
The European Commission (the Commission) has launched a project to codify EU law on the application of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to exclusionary abuses of dominant positions, such as exclusive dealing, tying and bundling, predatory pricing, refusals to supply and margin squeezes. The Commission published a…
Last 9 December, the European Commission issued its first draft implementing regulation for the DMA setting out the practical details surrounding the procedures around the gatekeeper’s designation (see the overview of the draft here). The feedback period surrounding the draft finished on 9 January 2023. On 14 April, the European Commission made public the first…
On January 12th 2023, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its long-awaited judgment in C‑883/19 P HSBC v Commission setting aside the judgment of the General Court (GC) but confirming the European Commission’s finding that HSBC had participated in a cartel in the market for Euro Interest Rate Derivatives (EIRD). The judgment clarifies the procedural safeguards that…
For unknown reasons, DG COMP persists in hiding the jewels when it comes to discrimination cases. This covers BdKEP/Deutsche Post AG from 2004, where DG COMP established (recital 93) how Article 102 TFEU covers three forms of discrimination, two exclusionary and one exploitive. As explained later, these have been referred to as horizontal-, vertical-, and…
In Goethe’s famous poem “Der Zauberlehrling”, a sorcerer’s apprentice enchants a broom to do the work for him, using magic in which he is not yet fully trained. The floor is soon flooded with water, and the apprentice realizes that he cannot stop the broom because he does not know how. His famous words “The…
In competition policy circles around the world, app stores remain a major topic of discussion regarding the regulation of digital markets. On February 28th, 2023, the European Commission (EC) sent a new Statement of Objections (SO) to Apple, “clarifying its concerns over App Store rules for music streaming providers”. This replaced the original SO, which…
