Shortly after revealing proposed amendments to the Competition and Consumer Protection Act (for details, please see my post from May 22), the Polish Competition Authority (the President of the Office for Protection of Competition and Consumers) published draft guidelines on commitment decisions (“Guidelines”). Since PCA nowadays uses commitment decisions increasingly often (125 such decisions were…
The opportunity to submit proposals for commitments in order to alleviate the concerns regarding infringement of the antitrust rules was effectively granted to undertakings in Romania only in 2011, following the substantial amendment of the Competition Law in 2010 in view of approximation with the European legislation and the publication of the relevant Romanian Competition…
In 2007, the European Commission prohibited Ryanair’s attempted hostile bid to acquire rival Irish airline, Aer Lingus. It also refused to order Ryanair to divest its 29.8% stake in Aer Lingus, which it had built up during its aborted public bid. The General Court later upheld both the prohibition of the merger and the refusal to require divestment of the minority shareholding. Subsequently, the UK Office of Fair Trading investigated Ryanair’s minority shareholding in Aer Lingus; Ryanair’s challenges to the OFT’s jurisdiction were rejected by both the Competition Appeal Tribunal and the Court of Appeal. On 1 June the Supreme Court refused Ryanair leave to appeal, thus confirming the OFT’s ability to investigate the transaction, which it referred to the Competition Commission on 15 June. However, immediately thereafter, Ryanair launched a third hostile bid to acquire Aer Lingus, leading to further litigation before the CAT to challenge the Competition Commission’s jurisdiction.
This blog post examines the complex interaction of European Commission and national authority jurisdiction to examine different transactions involving the same parties, as well as the OFT’s reasons for referring Ryanair’s minority shareholding to the Competition Commission.
The leniency policy which was introduced in Hungary as early as 2003 to encourage “penitent” undertakings to confess, unfortunately failed to fulfil the high hopes of the legislator. One might wonder what could be the reason for the relatively low number of processed applications, which are not supported by exact statistical data (only informal data),…
This post was written by Mr. Eduardo Molan Gaban and Mr. Bruno Droghetti Magalhães Santos, partner and associate, respectively, of the Antitrust/Competition and International Trade areas at Machado Associados Advogados e Consultores. At the end of 2011, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) rejected a proposal for a Cease and Desist Agreement (TCC) prepared…
Unannounced inspections of business premises in Austria rarely occurred in the past. However, the Austrian Federal Competition Agency has clearly changed this of late. Meanwhile, it has conducted several inspections (recently, supermarkets were the focus) and has adopted a harsh approach in the conduct of searches. Legal Background Upon request by the Federal Competition Agency,…
Most favoured customer clauses have risen to increasing prominence in both leading antitrust systems over the past two years. In the European Union, this came in the form of a little noted, but potentially significant, settlement with the Hollywood majors regulating their investment in new cinema equipment. In the United States, litigation relating to most…
Ten years ago today, new rules to bolster competition law enforcement in Ireland – set out in the Competition Act 2002 – entered into force. Introducing the new law, then Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Harney, heralded “ … a more focused approach towards penalisation of anti-competitive activities, more sensible arrangements for how…
The government proposal of the new amendments to the Antitrust Act reflect practical concerns of the Czech Anitrust Office. The amendment has been passed in the first and second readings in the Lower House of the Czech Parliament in spring 2012. It may be expected to become law in the second half of this year…
Merger challenges are rare in Canada. The last contested merger case in Canada was in 2005. Typically, concerns about a prospective merger are resolved in negotiations between the Commissioner of Competition (the “Commissioner”) and the acquiring party, with some form of partial divestiture the usual remedy required. As such, it was a major development when…
