On 21st December 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) achieved a “hattrick” with three important judgments on the interplay of sports and EU Law. In particular, the CJEU delivered three judgments on sports governing bodies’ statutes compliance with EU Law, especially EU Competition Law. In its ISU (C-124/21 P), ESL (C-333/21),…

Introduction On 13 November 2023, the District Court of Rotterdam (“Court”) handed down its judgment in the Samsung case. This ruling gives insights on whether a supplier, by actively pursuing its resale price recommendations can be held to restrict competition by object, even if its conduct does not involve any sanctions (or threat thereof) or…

In October 2023, Advocate General Rantos delivered his opinion in the context of a preliminary ruling request from Portuguese courts on whether an exchange of information between competitors can constitute a restriction of competition by “object” in breach of Article 101(1) of the TFEU. In practice, such classification relieves a competition authority from the obligation…

On 12 July 2023, the Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) issued its decision in the case S/0013/21 – Amazon/Apple Brandgating (the Decision) imposing a fine of €143.6 million on Apple and Amazon for restricting inter and intra-brand competition in the sale of Apple products on the Spanish Amazon marketplace contrary to Articles 1…

Sport itself is all about the competition on the pitch. However, sports federations’ actions and regulations have come increasingly into the focus of competition watchdogs and courts worldwide. A well-known example is the dispute over the establishment of the European Super League. As the recently announced merger between golf associations PGA and L.I.V. demonstrates, competition…

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 January 12th 2023, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its long-awaited judgment in C‑883/19 P HSBC v Commission setting aside the judgment of the General Court (GC) but confirming the European Commission’s finding that HSBC had participated in a cartel in the market for Euro Interest Rate Derivatives (EIRD). The judgment clarifies the procedural safeguards that…

The European Commission’s horizontal guidelines are an invaluable tool for practitioners in antitrust compliance work. The team at Unit A1 in DG COMP have done a great job at further developing the guidelines in the new draft that was published for stakeholder comments on 1 March 2022. Today, the EU & Competition team at Szecskay…

After deliberating on the matter for a year, DG COMP on the 9th of December published its draft guidance on the application of Article 101 on collective bargaining of the self-employed. This is done in response to the rise and proliferation of the online economy, centred specifically on platforms and greater reliance on freelancers and…

On 25 March 2021, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) dismissed all the appeals against the European Commission’s decision to fine Lundbeck and several other companies for entering into anti-competitive patent settlement agreements.1 The judgments largely repeat the position taken by the ECJ in its January 2020 Paroxetine judgment (see our alert). They notably confirm…