Pushing people around is the flavour of the month right now. Indeed, both companies and regulators seem to be going in for it. Take the music industry, for instance. The US entertainment giant AEG has just bought up the rights for the Wembley Arena, previously owned by that other humungous US impresario, Live Nation. AEG…
Last week, the European Commission published on its website a revised explanatory note on how it conducts on-the-spot inspections of business premises where it suspects a company has breached competition law (so-called “dawn raids”). During a dawn raid the European Commission has the power to examine and copy not just hard copies of business records,…
Competition Law in Canada – Top 10 Issues for 2013 This is a post of an article written by my partners Anita Banicevic, Richard Elliott, Charles Tingley and me **************************************** 2012 was a busy year for competition law and policy in Canada. Below we consider how some of the important developments in 2012 will shape…
At the end of 2012 the Slovak Antimonopoly Office presented its future plans for public discussion. Various aspects such as the announced prioritisation of antitrust enforcement, the incentives for settlement of antitrust cases, the establishment of a division of Chief Economist, the introduction of the leniency program into law, are all fully in line with…
In sport it used to be said that it is not the winning that counts but the taking part. That approach to professional sport would now seem rather quaint, but the debate has been recycled somewhat in relation to antitrust compliance programmes. The question currently being debated is whether companies that in good faith invest…
Introduction The smart phone wars have led to heated discussions over standard setting in technology markets. It seems only a question of time before the standard setting debate spills over into other areas. My personal candidate is the standard setting that underpins product quality, origin and safety certification. Certification – where invisible features matter An…
Introduction The European Commission has published its long-awaited proposals to overhaul the Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation,[1]Regulation 772/2004 April 27 2004 on the application of Article 81(3) (now Article 101(3)) of the Treaty to Categories of Technology Transfer Agreements, OJ L 123, Pages 11-17. which provides a competition law safe harbour for agreements that license…
BIS Reform: Opt–out Collective Actions Regime On the 21st of January the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (“BIS”) released the results of its consultation on competition law private litigation, confirming the introduction of a limited opt-out collective actions regime for consumer competition claims. The UK has traditionally opposed the introduction of an ‘opt out’…
It will not come as a surprise to many that in the first few years of having competition law powers, the Competition Commission of India (the “CCI”) has targeted one of India’s most important industries: Cricket. The dust has not yet settled on last week’s decision in relation to the activities of the Board of…
The Polish competition authority (Prezes Urzędu Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów, “PCA”) has recently addressed the issue of resale price maintenance clauses (“RPM”) (see PCA decision of 31 December 2012 in case no. DOK 9/2012). The matter merits some attention, what with interesting argumentation raised in defence of the challenged clause related to a launch of…
