Are big companies necessarily bad? If they are, how can we ensure that companies do not become too big and too bad? How can markets remain free, fair and competitive? Competition law has tried to answer these questions for centuries, with the most recent debates revolving around the alleged anti-competitive conduct of large tech companies….

The European Union’s (EU’s) new Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR), entered into force on January 12, 2023.  The FSR creates a unique new quasi-antitrust regime to combat distortions of competition in the EU internal market caused by subsidies multinationals receive outside the EU.  It imposes new mandatory notification and approval requirements for acquisitions of significant EU…

In Turkey, a Phase II review takes 228 days on average, almost eight months from the day of merger notification. Although the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) has prohibited only five proposed transactions during its 25-year tenure, both behavioural (11 cases) and structural remedies (15 cases) were imposed. The TCA conducted merger simulations in four cases,…

The impressive acceleration in mergers and acquisitions, combined with the promotion of disruptive business strategies, has put the ‘regulatory gap’[1] paradox at the heart of the current European merger control policy debate. While the current EU merger control regime risks fragmentation with the advent of the new Guidance on Referral Mechanism and the Digital Markets…

Advocate General Kokott has found [1] that the General Court erred in law in requiring the European Commission to show anti-competitive effects of a merger with “strong probability” and that the scope of its judicial review was overly broad, notably in relation to economic evidence.   Key takeaways This case will give the Court of…

Introduction The substantial rules of the Turkish merger control are taken from the corresponding EU provisions. The amendments to the Turkish Competition Law in 2020 introduced the SIEC test to improve the concentration control regime and harmonize it with the EU rules even further. The amended Merger Communique in 2022 revised the thresholds as a…

Background Amazon.com Inc. recently approached the Supreme Court against the decision of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), where the Tribunal affirmed the ruling of the Competition Commission of India (CCI). The impugned decision of the Tribunal upheld the penalty order against Amazon.com, on the basis of non-disclosure and suppression of material information in…

As in most jurisdictions, the Portuguese Competition Act (‘PCAct’) provides for an ex-ante merger control regime, according to which concentrations above certain thresholds are subject to mandatory pre-notification. Three alternative thresholds apply i) a turnover threshold, ii) a standard market share threshold and iii) a de minimis market share threshold (see Article 37 of the PCAct)….

Introduction On 19 May 2020, the Act against undesired control in the telecom sector (“Act“) was adopted by the Dutch Parliament. The Act introduces a notification requirement applicable to anyone who has the intention to acquire ‘a controlling interest’ in a ‘telecom party’ if such interest results in ‘relevant influence’ in the telecom sector. If…