Co-authored by: Alexandre Verheyden, Bernard Amory and Laurent de Muyter, Jones Day, Brussels The European Union has a new regime for assessing technology licensing agreements under EU competition law. The new rules include a new technology transfer block exemption regulation (“TTBER”), which exempts certain bilateral licensing agreements from antitrust rules, and revised Technology Transfer Guidelines…
Earlier today I read remarks delivered by European Commission competition head Joaquin Almunia in Brussels on the topic of cartel enforcement (see: Fighting against cartels: A priority for the present and for the future). He discussed, among other things, recent European cartel cases, fines achieved, cartels in innovation and fast moving markets and recent detection…
About ten days ago, the Council of the EU failed to reach an agreement on the proposed increase in the number of judges sitting at the General Court of the European Union. The Council thus buried ‑ and for quite a while – a proposal which could have helped the General Court reduce its currently…
By Marcel Meinhardt and Frank Bremer, Lenz & Staehelin, Switzerland On November 18, 2013, the Swiss Competition Commission (ComCo) closed proceedings without further action against a Swiss individual with a formerly controlling stake in companies investigated for a possible abuse of a dominant position under the Swiss Cartel Act (CartA). The decision clarifies the applicability…
The proceedings brought by the European Commission against Google are nearing a – provisional – end with the prospect of a decision making binding on Google a revised set of commitments (see here for the Commission statement and here for the full text of the proposed commitments). Independently of their merits in addressing the Commission’s…
On February 11, 2014, the Canadian government included in its federal budget a proposed amendment to the Competition Act to prohibit unjustified price discrimination to reduce the gap between consumer prices in Canada and the United States. The Minister of Finance made clear that the Commissioner of Competition, the head of Canada’s Competition Bureau, would…
On February 3, 2014, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the Competition Tribunal’s 2013 decision dismissing the Commissioner of Competition’s abuse of dominance allegations against the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) and referred the case back to the Tribunal. In so doing, the Court held that the Competition Act’s abuse of dominance provisions could potentially…
In our annual forecast of the year ahead for Canadian competition and foreign investment review law, the Davies Competition Law and Foreign Investment Group outlines the “Top 10” key issues and trends to watch for this year. 1. A Green Light for Class Actions by Indirect Purchasers The Supreme Court of Canada issued an important…
In a move that signals that UK criminal cartel enforcement is set to increase, Peter Nigel Snee appeared on 27 January 2014 at Westminster Magistrates’ Court to face charges under the UK’s criminal cartel offence. Mr Snee has been charged under section 188 of the Enterprise Act 2002 with “dishonestly agreeing with others to divide…
On December 23, 2103, the Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) published an explanatory note on settlement proceedings in antitrust cases on its website. Since 2007, the FCO has increasingly terminated cases through settlements, so the note came rather late. Unlike the European Commission, the FCO has entered into settlement agreements without a specific regulatory basis and…
