Guidance

Abuse of dominance, Competition policy, European Commission, European Union, Exclusionary Abuse, Guidance, Presumptions

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The European Commission has published for public consultation its long-awaited draft Guidelines on exclusionary abuses (draft Guidelines). The draft Guidelines aim at making it faster and easier for the Commission to pursue abuse of dominance cases, in particular by classifying a number of practices as “presumptively harmful”. This represents a marked departure from the 2008…

European Commission, European Union, Foreign subsidies, Foreign Subsidy Regulation, Guidance

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The EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation, or FSR, is intended to prevent or remedy distortions of the EU internal market caused by “foreign” – meaning non-EU – subsidies benefitting companies active in the EU.  The FSR draws on EU merger control, State aid and trade law, but it also introduces new legal concepts and procedures not…

Art. 22, European Commission, Guidance, Innovation, Market definition, Merger control, Merger regulation, Merger Thresholds, Sustainability

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Many of the most challenging transactions reviewed under the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR) in recent years involved their likely effects on non-price competitive factors: innovation; quality and product differentiation; data protection and privacy; sustainability; and capacity and reliability of supply.  These topics are discussed briefly, or not at all, in the Commission’s guidelines on the…

European Commission, Guidance, Horizontal, Network Sharing Agreements, Telecommunications

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On 1 June 2023, the European Commission published its new Horizontal Cooperation Guidelines (HCG) with a view to providing improved guidance for competitors wishing to cooperate, including in areas not previously covered in the 2012 HCG. One such new area is specific to the telecommunications sector and covers network sharing agreements (NSAs). This analysis sets…

Anticompetitive agreements, European Commission, Guidance, Guidelines, Horizontal, Sustainability

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The Commission has followed a Long and Winding carbon-free Road since only a few years ago when it seemed to favour the Status Quo and promoted a robust competitive process as the best way to guarantee sustainable outcomes for consumers. The final chapter on Sustainability Agreements in the EU Horizontal Guidelines clearly shows a Commission…

Abuse of dominance, As Efficient Competitor, European Commission, European Court of Justice, Guidance, Guidelines, Margin squeeze, Restriction by effect

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The European Commission (the Commission) has launched a project to codify EU law on the application of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to exclusionary abuses of dominant positions, such as exclusive dealing, tying and bundling, predatory pricing, refusals to supply and margin squeezes. The Commission published a…