Following the Commission decision in the GE/Alstom case, members of the Chief Economist Team have, on a number of occasions, publicly commented on the bidding analysis undertaken in this case. During these interventions, they have signalled that the analysis undertaken in GE/Alstom represents an important framework for the future competitive assessment of mergers involving bidding…
The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Hogan Lovells and its partners. A recent judgment in the Spanish bitumen cartel, Galp Energía España,[1]Judgment in Galp Energía España and Others v Commission (“Galp”), C-603/13 P, EU:C:2016:38. has shed some light on the…
Introduction Uber Technologies Inc. is an American transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It develops, markets and operates the Uber mobile app, which allows consumers with smartphones to submit a trip request, which is then routed to Uber drivers who use their own cars. Since entering Russia in 2013 with just a few…
In June 2015, China pushed through a relatively bold liberalization of drug prices, moving from a regime where the government decides the prices or price ranges of the most commonly used drugs to a regime where the prices of most drugs are determined by market forces. Already then, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)…
States have traditionally faced banking crisis through the so-called bail-out tool: public resources have been used for a long time in order to rescue banks, putting the burden on public finance, thus on taxpayers. Actually, this is what still happens in the most part of the world, but not in the European Union (EU). …
In its recent VM Remonts judgment, the Court of Justice of the EU has confirmed the strict liability of companies for the anti-competitive behaviour of their employees, even if the employee was acting contrary to instructions of senior management. The Court also clarified under which conditions a company can be liable for the anti-competitive conduct…
The German Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) terminated antitrust proceedings against toy manufacturer Lego on July 18, 2016, following Lego’s agreement to change its current rebate system. Lego will enable online retailers to obtain in practice the same amount of discounts as available for brick and mortar shops. The FCO had opened proceedings against Lego based…
With little fanfare, on Friday, 1 July 2016, among a raft of other amendments to the Act against Restraint of Competition (‘ARC’; 9th amendment), the Federal Ministry of Economics proposed a far reaching change to German merger notification thresholds making it one of the few jurisdictions worldwide that take jurisdiction based on the size of…
The role of data and how it can harm competition is a recurring topic in contemporary antitrust literature. Below, we highlight a few points integral to understanding what the fuss is all about. Making sense of data Frankly speaking, data itself is not revolutionary, and it presents nothing that competition authorities have not seen before….
On 19 May 2016, the Commission released its Notice on the notion of state aid. The aim of this Notice is to provide legal certainty by clarifying the key concepts relating to the notion of state aid. Ironically, many argue that the Commission has stretched this notion in the tax ruling cases, harming the same…
