Introduction The decision of the ECJ of 10th of September 2024 (C-48/22 P) brings the Google Shopping saga to an end. The decision by the highest court confirms the conviction of Alphabet by the General Court (T-612/17) (see the blogpost on General Court’s decision here). The European Commission had previously imposed a record fine of…

In a preliminary ruling issued on 14 March 2024, the District Court in Warsaw (DCW) granted Ceneo Ltd. an interim injunction in respect of non-monetary claims against Google Ireland Ltd. to cease acts of unfair competition on the Polish territory, consisting in the creation of market entry barriers for the plaintiff. This ruling precedes (temporarily…

Interpreting and applying Article 102 TFEU – at least in all difficult cases that typically reach the courts – requires a combined reliance on both ‘reason’ and ‘fiat’. It requires reliance on ‘reason’, by which I mean substantive reasoning about how a case should be decided, because no case is exactly like any other, and…

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) became entirely applicable on 7 March 2024. By then, the gatekeepers issued their compliance reports documenting their technical solutions and implementation of the DMA’s provisions under Article 11 DMA as well as their reports on consumer profiling techniques as required under Article 15 DMA (see here). I will be covering…

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) is now applicable. Following the 6-month interim period where gatekeepers had the opportunity to adapt their business models to the regulation, the DMA now requires them to prove their effective compliance with its provisions. To do that, on 7 March 2024, the six designated gatekeepers in September (see here) presented…

On 5 October 2023, the German competition authority adopted its first tangible evidence of enforcement surrounding its new competition rules (Section 19a GWB) directed at undertakings with paramount significance for competition across markets on its case against Google for its data processing terms (see the Bundeskartellamt’s decision designating Alphabet here and a previous comment on…

On 21 June 2023, the Bundeskartellamt, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO), sent a statement of objections to Google and published its preliminary legal assessment of Google’s practices in connection with Google Automotive Services (GAS). According to the Authority’s preliminary evaluation, Google’s practices regarding the licencing of services for infotainment systems in vehicles fulfil the requirements…

On the 31st of July, the European Commission issued for public consultation its (fourth) Template relating to the audited description of consumer profiling techniques pursuant to Article 15 of the DMA (the Template). The Template is inserted within the Commission’s wider transparency strategy to provide for a stream of implementing acts to secure the DMA’s…

In a recent judgment of 31 May 2023, the Amsterdam District Court (the District Court) accepted jurisdiction to adjudicate a damages case against Google Netherlands B.V. (located in Amsterdam) as well as against Google LLC and Alphabet Inc., two US-based entities that were fined by the European Commission in the Google Shopping case for abuse…

Google’s behaviour in the advertising technology sector (Ad Tech) is under attack or, at the very least, it is being intensely scrutinised on both sides of the Atlantic. Google is already subject to several antitrust suits in the U.S. lodged against it by the Department of Justice (DoJ) and individual States. In the European Union,…