Following an extensive inquiry into Australia’s competition laws, the Australian government has released its proposed overhaul of the law. The amendments expand the law’s two most significant existing prohibitions, now designed to enable the Australian regulator to take action for information sharing between competitors and to take action against the anticompetitive effects of conduct undertaken…
On 20 September 2016, the European Commission (“Commission”) issued its first settlement decision under Article 102 TFEU following the introduction of Regulation 1/2003 and reduced the fine of Altstoff Recycling Austria (“ARA“) by 30% in exchange for its cooperation. ARA’s fine was thus reduced to €6 million. In addition to the press release, the Commission…
India’s competition authority (the CCI) imposed a record-breaking fine of US$750,000 (50 million rupees) on General Electric (GE) earlier this year for failing to notify its tie-up with Alstom S.A. within the deadline required by the country’s merger control rules. The CCI is increasingly active in enforcing its merger regime. Since GE’s case, the CCI…
By Falk Schöning, Partner, and Peter Citron, Counsel, Hogan Lovells Online sales are not only attracting the attention of consumers and tech businesses, but also increased review by antitrust regulators. On 15 September 2016, the European Commission published a detailed 290 page preliminary report on its e-commerce sector inquiry. While commenting on the release of the report, EU…
The OECD describes a JV as a situation where participating firms agree by contract or otherwise to combine, other than by merger, significant productive (tangible or intangible) assets, and to do this by going beyond ad hoc co-operation1. A JV can be formed by incorporation or by contract. Thus under competition law, JVs include a…
On 7 April 2016, the CNMC (Spain’s National Authority for Markets and Competition) Council imposed fines totalling €6.12 million on six Spanish nougat (“turrón”) producers for agreeing to share the market of the main distributors of white label nougat in Spain between 2011 and 2013[1]CNMC Council Decision of 7 April 2016, Nougat producers, S/DC/0503/14. See…
In a much-anticipated series of judgments, running to some 579 pages, the EU’s General Court on 8 September 2016 upheld a 2013 decision of the European Commission that imposed fines of almost €150 million on the innovative pharmaceutical manufacturer, Lundbeck, and a number of generic manufacturers with whom Lundbeck had entered into agreements to settle…
On August 30, 2016, the Argentine Antitrust Commission (“CNDC”) has opened a public consultation process for its draft bill reforming its competition law. The main characteristics of the draft bill include: Institutional framework • The creation of an independent agency, the National Competition Authority (the “ANC”), as a decentralized and independent agency within the sphere…
The EU umbrella group of telecoms regulators –BEREC- just published Guidelines on net neutrality. The Guidelines are designed to assist national regulatory authorities in enforcing the net neutrality provisions set out in a Regulation adopted last year (the Open Internet Regulation – No. 2015/2120). The publication took place on August 30 in the afternoon with…
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…
