Antitrust, Competition, Mergers, United Kingdom

(St Johns Chambers, United Kingdom)/ /Leave a comment

The Competition Appeal Tribunal has upheld the Competition Commission’s decision to require Stericycle to divest the entirety of Ecowaste Southwest following its prohibition of the completed merger. In dismissing Stericycle’s appeal, the Tribunal confirmed that the Commission is not obliged to identify of its own motion all possible remedies, but merely those that would clearly resolve the harm to competition caused by the merger. It also held that, in a completed merger, the purchaser takes the risk of being required to divest the entire business acquired by it, if this is necessary to restore effective competition.

Antitrust, Europe

(Baker McKenzie, Belgium)/ /Leave a comment

In a judgment handed down today (C-158/11 Auto 24), the EU Court of Justice (“CJEU”) confirmed that suppliers operating selective distribution systems (“SDSs”) are under no obligation to publish the criteria used to appoint distributors, and that a car manufacturer using a SDS based on quantitative criteria is under no obligation to apply these criteria…

Intellectual property (IP), Pharmaceuticals, United States of America

(Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher)/ /Leave a comment

The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a decision that provides generic pharmaceutical manufacturers with the ability to challenge the “use codes” listed by brand name manufacturers in filings made with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”). The decision in Caraco v. Novo Nordisk illustrates the impact that these “use codes” can have on the…

Antitrust, Competition, Dominance, European Commission, Market definition

(Baker McKenzie, Belgium)/ /Leave a comment

On 15 May 2012, Advocate-General Mazák delivered his long awaited Opinion to the European Court of Justice in the long-running AstraZeneca litigation. Practitioners hoping for an opinion that tempered some of the more extreme dicta of the General Court were to be disappointed. Advocate-General Mazák recommended that the General Court’s judgment be upheld in its…

Antitrust, Competition

(Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) )/ /Leave a comment

On 18 May 2012, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court (‘Shanghai Court’) dismissed allegations that Johnson & Johnson Medical (China) Ltd. and its Shanghai branch had set a minimum resale price in beach of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (‘AML’) and rejected the plaintiff’s claim of damages of CNY 14.4 million (‘J&J RPM case’). It is…

Antitrust

(White & Case, Belgium)/ /Leave a comment

At the end of last week, the European Competition Network (“ECN”) published a report on the competition law enforcement and market monitoring activities by the European competition authorities in the food sector. The report is an important reminder of the fact that at both the European and national level the EU food sector has been…

Antitrust, Competition, Europe, European Union, General

(College of Europe, Belgium)/ /Leave a comment

Cross-border antitrust enforcement issues are back on the agenda. The recent Toshiba judgment of the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) has confirmed a number of principles governing the network enforcement system set forth in the EU by Regulation 1/2003. Recent national decisions involving the same companies and/or closely related sectors (e.g., the flour milling industry)…

Antitrust, Competition, Dominance, Mergers

(Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) )/ /1 Comment

On 19 May 2012, China’s Ministry of Commerce (‘MOFCOM’) announced its conditional clearance decision on the acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google, which removed the last hurdle for the USD12.5 billion vertical deal. The MOFCOM is the only antitrust authority to impose remedies on its clearance of the transaction. The US Department of Justice, the…

Dominance

(Consiliul Concurentei / Competition Council )/ /Leave a comment

Everybody at America Movil (”AM”) – and especially its owner, Mr.Carlos Slim – should have welcomed with a sense of relief the (somehow unexpected) turn in the saga which started last year when the Mexican Federal Competition Commission (“CFC”) hit AM’ mobile telephony unit Telcel with the largest fine in the history of Mexico: almost…