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…
With her delivery of the UK’s Article 50 notice on March 29, Theresa May has launched the two-year negotiating process leading to the first exit of a Member State from the European Union (EU). The negotiations will affect virtually every economic and policy area in Europe, including competition policy. These effects will be felt first…
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….
What light does the European Commission’s much anticipated 130-page decision, published Monday, 19 December 2016, shed on the Commission’s case and the parties’ prospects for appeal? In the second of a series of short blogs on the Apple case, here’s a quick-look review and comment on the Commission’s decision. We know now that the Commission’s…
By Daniel Schwarz, Clifford Chance, and Mark Katz, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg Introduction With the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) having finally been signed by the EU and Canada on October 30, 2016, it’s worth exploring what it says about competition law and policy and how it may impact these issues on both…
If AG Kokott in Post Danmark II was a 102 hawk – ordoliberal-redux, fossilizing form over function, economics on the “too difficult pile” for authorities and courts – then AG Wahl firmly sets out his stall as the 102 economics dove (§117, fn 87). Less of an opinion, more of a manifesto. It calls for…
The EU antitrust rules on State aid aim to prevent Member States from distorting competition by giving companies receiving State assistance a “leg up” on their competitors. The concept of State “aid” is broad, and the circumstances under which it may unlawfully distort competition are not always obvious. In addition, the Treaty provisions and secondary…
The EU Commission recently launched a consultation on ‘procedural and jurisdictional aspects of EU Merger Control’ (the Consultation), which most notably proposes the introduction of a deal-size threshold in the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR) to capture significant acquisitions where the target does not meet the current turnover-based thresholds. The Consultation follows a number of comments…
“Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’…” Introduction This quote from Alfred, Lord Tennyson might – I sincerely hope after recent events – be applicable to life generally in Brussels in 2017. But not so – I fear – in the world of EU merger control. It…
In a much-anticipated series of judgments, running to some 579 pages, the EU’s General Court on 8 September 2016 upheld a 2013 decision of the European Commission that imposed fines of almost €150 million on the innovative pharmaceutical manufacturer, Lundbeck, and a number of generic manufacturers with whom Lundbeck had entered into agreements to settle…
