On April 24, 2024, the German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) rejected Amazon’s appeal against the decision of the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) of July 2022, designating Amazon as a gatekeeper under national competition law, Section 19a ARC. The ruling clarifies important aspects of this provision designed to capture large digital companies (see translation of…
As the European Commission prepares for a new mandate under President Ursula von der Leyen later this year, former ECB President Mario Draghi – famous for his “whatever it takes” approach to saving the Euro – has now turned his focus to the future of EU competitiveness in the digital age. His long-awaited report, commissioned…
In her first economic policy speech as Presidential Candidate, Kamala Harris pledged to introduce a federal ban on price gouging in the food sector. Claiming that prices failed to return to pre-pandemic levels despite improvements to supply chains following prior breakdowns and that “[m]any of the big food companies are seeing their highest profits in…
The UK Competition and Market Authority has launched an investigation into Ticketmaster over its dynamic pricing of concert tickets. This follows widespread complaints about Ticketmaster increasing ticket prices in response to large demand for band Oasis’s reunion tour. Dynamic pricing is not a new practice. Airlines and ride-hailing companies like Uber are particularly well-known for…
Part II: Procedural Provisions This blog post is the second in a series of two blog posts. The aim of the series is to provide a brief overview of the (“Draft Law”, “Turkish DMA”, “Draft” or “Law”). In the first blog post, we focused on the general preamble of the Draft together with the details…
On 27 June 2024, the EU Court of Justice (“CJEU”) issued its judgments in the Perindopril (Servier) case. The judgments follow a European Commission (“EC”) decision of 9 July 2014, and a series of General Court (“GC”) judgments of 12 December 2018 in relation to appeals against that EC decision. The case started with a…
Background On September 5, the Advocate General Pikamäe is expected to deliver an opinion in the Caronte (C-511/23) and Trenitalia (C-510/23) cases. Despite the different legal bases, the cases revolve around the same question, that is whether competition law and consumer protection rules, read in the light of the effectiveness of administrative action, preclude national…
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…
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…
Executive Summary On 20 February 2024, the German Federal Court of Justice (“FCJ“) ruled on the disclosure of trade secrets in antitrust proceedings. The underlying case (File No. KVB 69/23) concerns the German Federal Cartel Office’s (“FCO“) antitrust investigation into Google’s business practices and the FCO’s intention to disclose information to a third party TomTom,…
