On 28 November 2016 the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMC) launched public consultations on the draft Horizontal Merger Guidelines. The AMC invites to submit comments to the draft by 7 December 2016. The draft Guidelines, prepared in cooperation with the Competition Council of the Republic of Lithuania, Bundeskartellamt and the US Federal Trade Commission, are modelled after…
On 4 November 2016, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (“SAIC“) – one of China’s antitrust authorities – published on its website three decisions, whereby three payment encryption device suppliers were fined by SAIC’s branch in Anhui Province (“Anhui AIC“). Payment encryption devices are used by bank customers to protect the security of payments…
Introductory remarks Following such landmark cases as Ryanair,[1] EDF[2] and ING,[3] one may observe a truly impressive expansion and development of the MEIP. While the EU Courts have (finally) drawn attention to the question of the applicability of the MEIP, the Commission and ESA often have had to decide on quite novel and complex issues…
The Federal Cartel Office (FCO) held a conference with antitrust experts (professors and judges) on October 6. 2016, on “Competition and Consumer Conduct – Conflict or Parallelism between Consumer protection and Antitrust Law?” As part of the conference, the FCO published a background paper on the same topic, available in German, see http://www.bundeskartellamt.de/DE/UeberUns/Veranstaltungen/ArbeitskreisKartellrecht/arbeitskreiskartellrecht_node.html I. Background…
Speaking at a recent conference in Hong Kong, the President of the Hong Kong Competition Tribunal, Mr Justice Godfrey Lam, examined whether parties might seek remedies for anti-competitive acts in Hong Kong based on common law economic torts without relying on follow-on actions under the Competition Ordinance. A follow-on action is a private action for…
For the past several years, antitrust/competition law practitioners from more than 30 countries have participated in surveys developed by fellow practitioners, who serve as Non-Government Advisers to the International Competition Network (“ICN”). Past surveys were done to inform the ICN Agency Effectiveness Working Group and its Investigative Process Project (in 2014, the survey work was awarded…
A Brexit Competition Law Working Group has been formed, chaired by Sir John Vickers. The other members are Jon Turner QC, Amelia Fletcher, John Fingleton, Sir Nicholas Forwood, Ali Nikpay and Richard Whish. The aim of the group is to stimulate debate and develop practical policy suggestions for Government on issues for UK competition law…
On 8 November 2016, the French Competition Authority (FCA) fined French-based Altice group and its telecommunications subsidiary SFR 80 million euros for the coordination of their commercial behaviour in the period between the acceptance of Altice’s purchase offer of SFR and the FCA’s merger clearance decision. This is the highest fine ever imposed by a…
On 21 September 2016, the German Government has introduced a formal legislative proposal (Gesetzesvorschlag – “Government Proposal”) for the reform of the Act against Restraint of Competition (“ARC”; 9th amendment) which builds on the draft proposal (Referentenentwurf – “Ministerial Draft”) of the Federal Ministry of Economics. It still includes the proposed extension of German merger…
In October 2016, the Commission published a new study on the passing on of overcharges. A key objective for the Study is to provide judges and other practitioners who are not economic experts with clear insight into the economics of pass-on and the methods that can be used to quantify passing-on and volume effects. The…
