At the end of July, the Supreme Court of Israel issued a judgment giving local consumers the right to submit class-action suits against dominant companies in case of exorbitantly high prices. Background The dominant company at stake, Central Bottling, deals with the production, marketing and distribution of brands of the global Coca-Cola Company. This…
The Netherlands Authority for the Consumer and Markets’ (“ACM“) announced focus on drug price developments has finally come to a tangible enforcement result: a fine of almost EUR 20 million imposed on Leadiant, manufacturer of the orphan drug CDCA-Leadiant. This penalty decision follows the announcement by the ACM in 2018, repeated in2020 and 2021, that…
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…
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…
What are commitments? The recent effort by the Commission to settle the Aspen case suggests that commitment decisions are the preferred route to settle complex excessive pricing cases at EU-level. Previous commitment cases where high prices have been at issue include Rambus, Standard & Poor’s and Gazprom. The EU rules allow the Commission to make…
The Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) on March 23, 2020 gave its heads up to undertakings that it was “closely following the price increases”, which it referred to as “opportunistic” during the pandemic[1]. As such, the TCA warned in its announcement that it will impose the highest fines allowed by the Turkish Competition Law on all…
In April 2020, The Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) initiated two separate preliminary inquiries in the protective face mask and retail sectors. These inquiries are a part of the TCA’s current patrol on anti-competitive activities in sectors that directly affect consumers during the Covid-19 outbreak. As a result of Covid-19 and its dire consequences, numerous industries…
Introduction While the world is dealing with novel coronavirus pandemic, many countries resorted to protectionist measures in order to preserve the quality of social life and stability of the economy from the effects caused by the outbreak. A package of measures to that end was introduced by the Turkish lawmakers via Act No. 7244 on…
Summary On 10 March 2020 the Court of Appeal upheld the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s (CAT) quashing of the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) decision that Pfizer and Flynn Pharma (Flynn) had abused their dominant positions in the market by pricing their epilepsy drug unfairly. Among other aspects, the Court of Appeal broadly upheld the CAT’s…
In a decision released in July 2018, the Secretary of Commerce –following the recommendations of the Argentinean Antitrust Commission (CNDC) – imposed a fine worth AR$42.7 million (approximately US$1.5 million) to the Argentinean Society of Music Authors and Composers (SADAIC) for abusing its dominant position in breach of the Antitrust Law No. 27,442 (the “Antitrust…
