On the 14 September, the Court of Justice of the European Union provided detailed guidance on the concept of excessive pricing under Article 102 TFEU, in response to questions posed by the Latvian Supreme Court. In Case C-177/16, the Latvian Supreme Court referred a number of questions to the Court of Justice of the European…
The GC’s decision of 14 September 2017 relates to a complaint filed with the European Commission (‘EC’) by Contact Software, a German software supplier of Product Data Management (‘PDM’). Contact Software alleged an abuse of dominance by Dassault Systèmes (‘Dassault’) and Parametric Technology Corp (‘Parametric’), as they refused to provide Contact Software with interface information…
In short: The Background: In September 2017, the European Court of Justice (Case C-413/14 P) reversed the ruling of the General Court, which had upheld the European Commission’s €1.06 billion fine on Intel for abusing its dominant position on the market for x86 central processing units. The Main Issue: The Intel case prompted much debate…
On 7 September 2017, the European Court of Justice issued its preliminary ruling in Case C-248/16 Austria Asphalt. The judgment clarifies that a change from sole to joint control over an existing undertaking is a notifiable concentration under the Merger Regulation only if the resulting joint venture will be a “full function” joint venture post-transaction….
On 6 September, the EU’s highest court, the Court of Justice (CJEU), released its long-awaited decision in the Intel case, in which the Commission imposed a fine of €1.06 billion – at the time, the largest fine ever imposed by a competition regulator on an individual company. This is a very important decision in light…
Background The notion of ‘undertaking in difficulty’ is a key element in State aid law because undertakings in difficulty can only received any State aid under the restrictive conditions for so-called rescue and restructuring aid. Any other form of State aid is excluded, even when competing companies that are not in difficulties can receive such…
Hurtling 175 meters below the Franco-Swiss border at near light speed are compact beams of particles, guided by superconducting electromagnets cooled to a temperature colder than outer space itself. At the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, physicists are searching for an elusive but all-embracing theory to unite quantum mechanics and general…
The judgment reinforces due process and transparency in EU merger control proceedings. The Court made clear that due process standards will be strictly enforced in merger cases, despite the relatively tight deadlines. The Decision was, therefore, annulled for failure to respect rights of defence in relation to the handling of economic evidence by the Commission….
We live in a rapidly changing world. The monikers of change are well known to all of us. Trump. Brexit. Eddie Jones. The future is unpredictable. As Joe Cocker sang, “who knows what tomorrow brings”? But let’s climb aboard Elon Musk’s innovative SpaceX Falcon 9 for a moment. Let me take you to another world….
Introduction On a number of occasions the Court of Justice (CJEU) has been tasked with deciding how familiar concepts of competition law apply to novel facts. In Eturas (Case C-74/14, judgment of 21 January 2016), questions of how concerted practices should be considered in the online world were referred to the CJEU for a preliminary…
