Introduction In the latest Judgement by the German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) regarding Section 33g of the Act against Restraints of Competition (“ARC”) in BGH, Urt. v. 4.4.2023, KZR 20/21 – Vertriebskooperation im Schienenpersonennahverkehr (“Judgement”), which was added by the 9th Amendment of the ARC in 2017 and revised by the 10th Amendment of…
The Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has approved Communication 1/2023 of 13 June, published in Spain’s Official State Journal (BOE) on 30 June 2023, (i) establishing that the authority holding sanctioning powers in matters of competition is the competent authority for imposing a public procurement ban, and (ii) setting out the general criteria…
On 14 July 2023, the European Commission launched its second template relating to the gatekeeper’s compliance with Article 14 of the DMA (the Template), i.e., their obligation to inform about any intended concentration involving core platform services or any other services in the digital sector or enabling the collection of data (Article 14(1) of the…
Introduction On 29 June 2023, the European Court of Justice (ECJ or Court) issued its judgment in case C-211/22, where it reiterates the legal framework applicable to vertical price fixing agreements under EU competition law. The focus on the need to assess the legal and economic context in which the agreement is celebrated is particularly…
On July 6, 2023, the German parliament adopted the “Competition Enforcement Act.” The new law still lacks final approval by the Bundesrat, which will not be granted before the end of September, but this is only a formality. It marks the 11th amendment to the Act against Restraints on Competition (ARC11), Germany’s national antitrust law….
In a preliminary reference procedure stemming from a private cartel damages action in Spain, the European Court of Justice (‘ECJ’ or ‘the Court’) had to rule on the binding effects of national competition authorities’ (‘NCAs’) decisions for private enforcement as evidence before national courts. Besides, another question concerned the effects of the automatic nullity of…
The collapse of Crédit Suisse and its subsequent takeover by UBS has produced far-reaching effects, affecting the global banking landscape. Financial stability considerations and market turmoil surrounding the takeover have been widely discussed in the media. Other perspectives, however, have received relatively little attention. In this blog post, we consider a number of competition law…
Facts and court proceedings Before the start of the liberalization process in 1999 with Legislative Decree 79/1999 (“Decreto Bersani”), the Italian electricity market was run singlehandedly by the Ente Nazionale Energia Elettrica (Enel), born with the nationalization of electricity in 1962. As the former Italian legal monopolist, Enel was integrated into all stages of the…
The preliminary ruling of 12 January 2023 in RegioJet can easily be perceived as a continuation of the jurisprudence on disclosure rules that was developed by the European Court of Justice (the Court or ECJ) in the case of C-163/21 – PACCAR. The PACCAR case concerned specific questions of disclosure of documents, which were not…
Jurisdiction after DB Station At the end of last year, the ECJ rendered a much-anticipated ruling in the DB Station case (C-721/10), which fundamentally clarified the hierarchy between regulators and civil courts in abuse of dominance cases relating to regulated infrastructure sectors. After lengthy national proceedings, the ECJ decided that national civil courts can only…
