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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
On 6 May 2021, the European Commission (“Commission”) published its evaluation of the Horizontal Block Exemption Regulations and the Guidelines on Horizontal co-operation agreements (“HGL”) (as reported here). The evaluation indicated that revision and clarity is needed in various areas, inter alia for sustainability agreements. The Dutch Authority for Consumer & Markets (“ACM”) announced on…
Back in April 2017, The Times ran a story detailing how a drug giant had a “secret plan” to destroy a cancer medicine unless large price rises were agreed to by national purchasing authorities. A month later, the European Commission opened an investigation into Aspen. Almost four years later in February 2021, it accepted commitments…
