On 19 April 2018, the Court of Justice (CJEU) issued an important ruling in the MEO case on the interpretation of Article 102(c) TFEU.[1] Article 102 prohibits, as incompatible with the EU’s internal market, any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position in so far as it may affect trade between Member…
In a judgment dated 5 February 2018, the General Court of the EU (the “General Court”) rejected the appeal by German retailer Edeka–Handelsgesellschaft Hessenring’s (“Edeka”) against a decision by the European Commission (the “Commission”) refusing Edeka’s application to obtain access to material classified by the Commission as confidential during its investigation into alleged manipulation of…
Most merger control regimes provide for so-called stand-still obligations, i.e. the parties cannot implement the transaction until the necessary merger clearances have been received from the relevant competition authorities. This means in particular that the acquiring company cannot starting controlling the target’s business prior to closing – no “gun jumping” is allowed. Competition authorities have…
Background This case concerns a dispute between Coty Germany GmbH, a supplier of luxury cosmetic products, and Parfümerie Akzente GmbH, an authorised retailer. Coty Germany, a subsidiary of the US parent company Coty Inc., sells luxury cosmetics in Germany through a selective distribution network of authorised distributors. Parfümerie Akzente is a longstanding authorised distributor for…
‘Product hopping’, or ‘evergreening’, are expressions used (by antitrust authorities and industry respectively) to describe strategies employed by pharmaceutical companies to protect sales of a successful drug on the verge of losing patent protection. For example, a pharmaceutical company might introduce a new formulation of the drug before it faces significant competition from a generic…
The competition and agricultural rules in the EU treaties have lived separate lives for many decades. While an agricultural exemption from the competition rules was already foreseen by Article 42 of the Treaty of Rome (now Article 42 TFEU) and this exemption has been included in secondary legislation since 1962, in practice its scope was…
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….
