European Union

Anticompetitive agreements, Cartels, Dawn raids, European Commission, European Union, Labour market, No-poach-agreement

, , , , , , (White & Case) and (White & Case, Belgium)/ /Leave a comment

In a speech on 22 October 2021, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager revealed that the European Commission was planning a series of dawn raids for the months to come. She highlighted that the European Commission is not just looking to investigate traditional cartels, like price-fixing agreements, but also other types of anti-competitive conduct – such…

Digitisation, Dutch clause, European Commission, European Union, Foreign direct investment, Innovation, Jurisdiction, Jurisdiction clauses, Killer acquisitions, Merger control, Podcast

(University of Vienna, Austria)/ /Leave a comment

The newest episode of the competition edition of the International Law Talk Podcast focuses on the revival of the Dutch clause and other current issues of merger control. For this highly topical issue, I interviewed merger control star Tilman Kuhn from White & Case. Earlier this year, the European Commission encouraged Member States to use…

Dawn raids, European Union

(Norton Rose Fullbright), (White & Case), and (White & Case, Belgium)/ /1 Comment

This autumn, European competition authorities are likely to resume dawn raids of companies suspected of competition law infringements.  This will aim to clear a backlog of planned inspections that has built up since the start of the pandemic resulting from organizational difficulties due to COVID-19 travel and social distancing restrictions.  Companies should ensure that their…

European Court of Justice, European Union, Fundamental rights, Ne bis in idem

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In his Opinions of 2 September 2021, in Cases C-151/20 Nordzucker and C-117/20 Bpost, Advocate General (AG) Bobek recommended that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) set out coherent guidance for national courts on the application of the ne bis in idem principle, upholding the unified test which should rely on three…

Abuse of dominance, Advertising, Brand Gating, Data protection, Digital markets, European Commission, European Union, Facebook, France, Germany, Italy, Merger control, Online advertising, Online platforms, Spain, United Kingdom

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When we earlier reported the German Facebook proceedings in terms of a legal opera [Link], this metaphor was, as I am afraid we have to admit, a little ill-fitting. As things now seem, we can observe a whole oeuvre, a whole cinematic universe, as a good number of spin-offs, sequels and side-stories centred around Facebook…

European Union, Google, India

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In May 2020, Google integrated its free video conferencing service Meet into its free client mail service Gmail as a pre-installed service that can only be hidden, not deleted, by the consumers by modifying the settings. This conduct could be assessed in competition law as an abuse of dominance, namely a tying sensu stricto, consisting…

Damages, European Court of Justice, European Union, Jurisdiction, Private enforcement

(bureau Brandeis Paris)/ /Leave a comment

The Court of Justice of the European Union provides useful guidance on the interpretation of the concept of “the place where the damage occurred” to ascertain which court within a Member State has jurisdiction over a follow-on cartel damages claim. Pursuant to settled case-law interpreting Article 7(2) Brussels I bis[1], the court having jurisdiction over…

Digital economy, Digital markets, European Union, Merger control

(Norton Rose Fulbright, Belgium)/ /Leave a comment

The European Commission’s 254-page decision approving Google’s acquisition of Fitbit (the “Decision”) offered the Commission a so-far unique opportunity to apply the 2019 report on “Competition policy for the digital era’s” (the “Digital Era Report’s”) recommendation to assess acquisitions by “gatekeeper platforms” of much smaller companies active in complementary markets using an “ecosystem” approach.  Google/Fitbit…

Damages, European Union, Evidence, Private enforcement

(Spieker & Jaeger)/ /1 Comment

Despite the best efforts of the European legislator, in some European Member States private enforcement of competition law, that is, private litigation for compensation of cartel overcharges is meagre at best. One of the numerous reasons why private enforcement of competition law mostly fails is the lack of meaningful provisions for determining the damage suffered,…

Dutch clause, European Union, Excessive pricing, Intellectual property (IP), International Law Talk, Merger control, Patent settlements, Pharmaceuticals, Podcast

(University of Vienna, Austria)/ /Leave a comment

We are happy to announce the new International Law Talk Podcast episode on EU competition law developments in the pharmaceutical sector. And this one is twice as good! Not only are we discussing both competition and IP issues, but I also interviewed two leading experts in the field: Michael Clancy and David Hull from Van…