Sustainability

Abuse of dominance, Competition law, European Union, HBER, Regulation, Supply chain, Sustainability, VBER, Vertical agreements, Vertical restraints

(European University Institute)/ /Leave a comment

In European competition law, both Article 101 and 102 TFEU inquiries require a contextual approach to the dispute at hand. Since enforcers must consider any agreement or business activity within the economic, legal, and factual context of which it forms part, regulatory regimes become important guideposts for any competition analysis. This point has been emphasized…

Austria, Competition law, Guidelines, Sustainability

(Wolf Theiss)/ /Leave a comment

On 1 June 2022, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (‘FCA’) published its draft Sustainability Guidelines (‘Guidelines’) to provide guidance for assessing ecological/environmental sustainability agreements under the new sustainability exemption recently introduced in Austrian antitrust law (§ 2 para 1 of the Austrian Cartel Act).   Background The new sustainability exemption was introduced by the Austrian…

European Union, HBER, Horizontal, Sustainability

(University of Antwerp)/ /5 Comments

Debates amongst competition scholars and practitioners have been buzzing with references to sustainability recently. Several books and articles were written about the topic in the last two years and several competition agencies have written position papers about it. Most of the debate about the interaction between competition law and sustainability concerns agreements between competitors that…

European Union, HBER, Horizontal, Sustainability

(Baker McKenzie)/ /Leave a comment

The Commission’s draft chapter on sustainability cooperation may surprise even those following the debate about EU antitrust policy and sustainability closely. A more worldly approach to benefits, a new and useful tailored safe harbour for sustainability standards, plus a good first attempt to keep sustainability cooperation out of Article 101.1 (or at least the ‘by…

Netherlands, Sustainability

, , (Bird & Bird)/ /Leave a comment

High on the agenda of the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (“ACM”) is the topic of energy transition and sustainability. The ACM has started to tackle the subject this year by assessing two sustainability initiatives under the competition rules and by announcing that it will explore the opportunities that the energy law framework provides…

Abuse of dominance, Austria, Digital markets, Dominance, Exemptions, Foreign direct investment, Foreign investment, Jurisdiction, Merger control, Merger Thresholds, Relative Market Power, Sustainability, Turnover thresholds

(Michael Mayr EU and Austrian Competition Law)/ /Leave a comment

On 10 September 2021, certain significant changes to Austria’s competition law entered into force, although some of the merger control related changes will apply only as of 1 January 2022: Merger control. The amendments include a revision of Austria’s revenue-based merger control threshold, the introduction of the significant lessening of competition test, and a broadening…

Cartels, Collusion, Green Deal, HBER, Horizontal, Leniency, Settlement, Sustainability, Technological Development

(University of Vienna, Austria) and (General Court)/ /3 Comments

On 8 July 2021, the Commission found that Daimler, BMW and the Volkswagen Group (Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche) violated competition law by colluding on technical development in the area of emission cleaning for new passenger diesel cars, fining the latter two a total of €875 million. The current hype regarding competition law and sustainability comes…

Anticompetitive agreements, Competition policy, European Commission, European Union, Green Deal, HBER, Horizontal, Netherlands, Sustainability

(Deloitte Legal)/ /Leave a comment

On 6 May 2021, the European Commission (“Commission”) published its evaluation of the Horizontal Block Exemption Regulations and the Guidelines on Horizontal co-operation agreements (“HGL”) (as reported here). The evaluation indicated that revision and clarity is needed in various areas, inter alia for sustainability agreements. The Dutch Authority for Consumer & Markets (“ACM”) announced on…

Anticompetitive agreements, Competition policy, European Commission, European Union, Germany, Greece, Green Deal, Merger control, Netherlands, OECD, State aid, Sustainability

(Norton Rose Fulbright, Belgium)/ /Leave a comment

A February 4 conference on competition policy and the Green Deal sponsored by the European Commission’s (the Commission’s) Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP) highlighted the divergences of opinions among antitrust officials and other stakeholders on how competition policy should support sustainability objectives.  DG COMP aims to take a leading role on sustainability issues; its October-November…

Competition Law 2020, Digital markets, Netherlands, Sustainability

(Bird & Bird, The Netherlands) and (Bird & Bird)/ /Leave a comment

Main developments competition law and policy 2020: The Netherlands As part of the series of posts on the main 2020 developments in key jurisdictions by many authors of the Kluwer Competition Law Blog, we provide you with an overview of developments in the Netherlands. In sum, we saw an upsurge in the enforcement of the…