Sustainability

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…

Competition policy, Consultation, Europe, European Commission, Green Deal, Sustainability, Vestager

, , , (Latham & Watkins LLP)/ /Leave a comment

On 13 October 2020, the European Commission (EC) published a call for contributions to gather ideas on how EU competition rules (State aid, antitrust, and merger control) and sustainability policies can best work together. The aim is to gather the widest set of views possible to determine how the competition rules should be amended (if…

Energy Policy, Euratom Treaty, European Court of Justice, Nuclear Energy, State aid, Sustainability, United Kingdom

(Greenberg Traurig Germany LLP)/ /Leave a comment

Months before the prospective final Brexit, the ECJ laid what is in all likelihood the last State aid milestone on the UK’s path out of the European Union – at the same time, the ECJ’s judgment in the „Hinkley Point C“ case (Case C-594/18 P Austria v Commission) is a farewell gift to the remaining…

Competition policy, Green Deal, Netherlands, Sustainability

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

Introduction On 9 July 2020 the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (‘ACM’) published its draft sustainability guidelines (‘Draft Guidelines’) containing ACM’s proposed approach of assessing the compatibility of sustainability initiatives with competition law. A new feature in the Draft Guidelines is the proposal to take into account in the competition law assessment of environmental…

Competition and Markets Authority, COVID-19, Sustainability, United Kingdom

(Competition Appeal Tribunal)/ /1 Comment

The Coronavirus crisis has shown how governments and competition authorities around the world have been able and willing to act in a crisis-and the UK government and the CMA have been no exception. If we can do this to fight one (hopefully, short-term) crisis why can’t we show the same resolve in the face of…

Competition law, European Commission, European Union, Sustainability

(Baker McKenzie)/ /Leave a comment

This post explains (i) why there is friction between sustainability initiatives and competition law and (ii) how the EU Commission could take steps to address this. Recent EU developments suggest a renewed interest in this area: In November 2018, the EU Competition Commissioner hinted at a more worldly application of the EU competition rules by emphasising that…