Over the last decade, the patent landscape has been dramatically altered by the rise of entities whose business model is to acquire significant patent portfolios and aggressively pursue license fees from businesses selling products that may infringe on some of those patents. Such companies are known as “non-practicing entities” (NPEs) or “patent assertion entities” (or,…
According to standard economic theory, unfettered free markets lead to an efficient allocation of resources. Importantly, this result is generally taken to hold only insofar as market failures are absent. One of these failures, market power, is defined as the ability to elevate prices above competitive levels for a significant period of time. Generally speaking,…
Right now, the leitmotif in the competition world is the anger of the ordinary citizen. You thought this was an arena dominated by sober minded analysts, regulators and business executives? Think again. Take, for instance, the investigation into Britain’s retail road fuel industry – worth about £32bn – currently being conducted by the UK’s Office…
After a long period of political deadlock, the Belgian Government is finally moving the reform of the Belgian Competition Authority to the top of its priority list. At the heart of the political battle is the old question what or whom the Authority should seek to protect: the competitive process or the end consumer? Reforms…
On 19th of April 2011, the Romanian Competition Council (the “RCC”) closed the investigation against the Romanian Football Federation and its members, as well as against the Football Professional League and its members regarding the potential breach of the Romanian and European antitrust rules by joint commercialisation of the commercial rights on football competitions, following…
Many new economic analysis tools have been introduced, particularly for merger analysis during the last decade. Some of these tools have also raised considerable public interest. For instance, probably not many have avoided hearing of the UPP test, and undoubtedly many are already familiar with the meaning of the abbreviations GUPPI, IPR and CMCR. The…
In early July this year, the UK’s specialist competition court, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (“CAT”), adopted a judgment (“Judgment”) in which it awarded a claimant (2 Travel) exemplary damages in relation to predatory pricing abuses engaged in by its dominant rival, Cardiff Bus.[1]2 Travel Group PLC (in liquidation) v Cardiff City Transport Services Limited {2012}…
More than one year ago, in response to complaints from local suppliers alleging abusive practices in the distribution chain of FMCG, the Ministry of Economy set up a Joint Task Group (JTG) to investigate whether legislative intervention was required. The JTG was fast to conclude that competition is distorted due to the existence of undertakings…
On 19 July 2012 the Bulgarian Commission on Protection of Competition (“CPC”) handed down a commitments decision and closed an investigation against six retailers for alleged horizontal coordination of their pricing and marketing policy (the “Commitments Decision”). This post highlights some issues and policy concerns stemming from the Commitments Decision and the preceding statement of…
Public procurements significantly add to the Croatian gross domestic product. Available data for 2011 reveal that public procurement contracts accounted for roughly 10% of the Croatian GDP. At the same time, based on the number of relevant decisions of the Croatian Competition Agency (“Agency”) and public statements of the Agency’s officials, cartels and cartel like…
