According to a recent press release by the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (AFCA), in the course of a general market and media monitoring AFCA became aware of the merger between the two US-based companies Facebook and GIPHY, which took place in May 2020, and consequently initiated investigations based on suspicion of a violation of the standstill…

The unnecessary delay and piling up of cases are amongst the predicament of the Indian Judicial System. And the existence of this intricacy is not limited to the judiciary, it also stretches to other regulatory aspects and administrative systems across our country. Even specific tribunals and regulatory bodies are lagging behind in keeping pace with…

The European Commission’s 254-page decision approving Google’s acquisition of Fitbit (the “Decision”) offered the Commission a so-far unique opportunity to apply the 2019 report on “Competition policy for the digital era’s” (the “Digital Era Report’s”) recommendation to assess acquisitions by “gatekeeper platforms” of much smaller companies active in complementary markets using an “ecosystem” approach.  Google/Fitbit…

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…

On May 5, 2021, the European Commission (the Commission) adopted a proposal for a regulation (the Anti-Subsidy Regulation) to combat distortions of competition in the European Union (EU) caused by subsidies granted by non-EU Member States to companies doing business in the EU.  The Anti-Subsidy Regulation is an important part of the von der Leyen…

It has been another exciting year in Spanish Merger Control.  To the overarching importance of the pandemic, we have to add political appointments, more Phase II investigations and resort to innovative packages of remedies.   The Spanish Enforcer in Times of Pandemic In June 2020, the council of the Comisión Nacional de Mercados y de…

In Joseph Heller’s seminal World War II novel, the protagonist Captain Yossarian finds himself in an inescapable situation. To continue flying into war is insane, but claiming insanity to avoid going to war immediately demonstrates your sanity. There is no way out. This is Catch-22. But the book also has other fascinating passages, touching on…

On March 26, the EU Commission announced a major reform of EU Merger Regulation (EUMR) procedures, arguably the most significant since the 2004 adoption of the current EUMR.  The current EUMR expanded EU jurisdiction by broadening the EUMR standard of review and allowing parties to request that transactions notifiable in three or more Member States…

On 12 March 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), China’s competition authority responsible for the enforcement of the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), has announced ten decisions imposing maximum fines for the failure to notify economic concentrations under the applicable merger control rules. The sanctions targeted China’s leading tech companies, which have been recently subjected…

On 21 January 2021, the Ukrainian Supreme Court (Supreme Court) annulled one of the highest fines of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMC) for gun-jumping. The judgement upheld the lower courts’ decisions, which in turn quashed the AMC’s 2019 decision to impose approx. EUR 1.9 million on a Ukrainian group subsidiary for the acquisition of…