Jurisdiction

Consumer welfare, United Kingdom

(St Johns Chambers, United Kingdom)/ /Leave a comment

In March 2014, the Office of Fair Trading (“OFT”) announced that it had adopted a decision finding that a leading manufacturer of mobility scooters, Pride, had illegally prevented its dealers from advertising prices online, other than its recommended retail price (“RRP”). This followed an earlier decision, adopted in August 2013, finding a slightly different infringement…

Cartels, China

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

Co-authored by Jay Modrall and Shan Hu. The authors of this article would like to thank Marc Waha, partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, for his insightful comments. 1 Introduction The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has recently stepped up its cartel enforcement activities and for the first time has published non-confidential versions of…

Competition, European Commission, European Union

(St Johns Chambers, United Kingdom)/ /Leave a comment

Inductive reasoning is sometimes explained by using either the ‘duck test’ (“if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”) or the ‘elephant test’ (“it is difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it”). In EU competition law, it sometimes…

Antitrust, Competition, United Kingdom

(St Johns Chambers, United Kingdom)/ /Leave a comment

Two unusual features of the United Kingdom’s merger control regime are that notification is voluntary and there is no ‘suspension’ obligation. This means that mergers can be – and routinely are – completed without notification to and/or approval by the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”). In this article, I examine the CMA’s use of its…

Competition, Consumer welfare, European Commission, European Union, Mergers, Policy

(Baker McKenzie, Belgium)/ /Leave a comment

Just over a year ago, I wrote (rather extensively) on the European Commission’s public consultation entitled “Towards more effective EU Merger Control” in which the Commission proposed to (i) expand its powers to review non-controlling minority interests and (ii) streamline the case referral system between the European Commission and NCAs (see here). Our regular readers…

Mergers, United Kingdom

(St Johns Chambers, United Kingdom)/ /Leave a comment

On 15 August 2014, the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) approved Alliance Medical Group’s completed acquisition of IBA Molecular’s radioactive medical tracer business. Although IBA’s business was loss-making, would have exited the market and there was no other credible buyer for it, the CMA refused to apply the ‘failing firm’ (or ‘exiting firm’) defence, as…

Antitrust, Cartels, Competition, Enforcement, Europe, European Union, Investigations, Leniency, Policy

(WKB Wierciński, Kwieciński, Baehr, Poland)/ /Leave a comment

On 10 June 2014, the Polish Parliament adopted a significant set of amendments to the Polish Competition Law Act (the “Act”). Having received Presidential approval on 30 June 2014, the amended Act is now waiting for publication. The changes are expected to come into force relatively soon. The amendments will take effect 6 months after…

Cartels, European Union

(Hausfeld)/ /Leave a comment

Co-authored by Nicola Boyle, Tom Bolster and Boris Bronfentrinker, Hausfeld On 5 June 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) clarified the full extent of cartel damages that can be recovered in Europe. The ECJ ruled that the civil liability of cartelists also extends to so-called “umbrella pricing”. This term describes pricing…