On January 18, 2012, the district court of Bonn ruled on the scope of access to file for third parties in a cartel case under German law. The court rejected the claim insofar as it concerned access to leniency applications. This is a landmark decision. The court upheld the FCO’s practice to refuse access to…
Johnson & Johnson Medical (China) Ltd. (‘J&J Medical’) and its Shanghai branch are sued in China for minimum resale price maintenance (RPM) by a Beijing-based distributor. This is the first private litigation that challenges RPM pursuant to China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (AML). The Facts Rainbow Medical Equipment & Supplies Co. (‘Rainbow’) distributed J&J suturing products for…
A commentary on the OECD Competition Commission conclusions on using arbitration to effectively resolve competition law disputes By Francesca Richmond and Sarah West There has been increasing use of arbitration to resolve disputes involving competition law issues in recent years. However, it is surprising that the number is not even greater given that arbitral processes…
Sometimes competition law looks as if it’s on the side of the bullies. Take, for example, the French Autorité de la concurrence’s recent decision in the Paris food retail sector case. The Autorité came up with the idea of using a new tool – a structural injunction – to tackle retail concentration. This would let…
A review of all decisions adopted pursuant to Article 81 EC/101 TFEU between the first of January 2000 and the first of January 2011 reveals that, excluding hardcore cartels, the Commission has issued altogether 18 infringement decisions and 10 commitment decisions. This is in addition to 6 negative clearance decisions and 18 exemption decisions adopted…
On 2 February 2012, the EU’s General Court issued two important judgments concerning the issue of whether joint venture parents can be held liable for the cartel behaviour of their 50-50 joint venture. In T-77/08 (Dow Chemical v Commission) and T-76/08 (El du Pont de Nemours and Others v Commission), the General Court held that…
In late January, the Commission finally published the non-confidential version of its decision in Unilever/Sara Lee Body Care (adopted in November 2010). The decision, reached after a Phase II investigation, is notable because it marks the first time in many years where the Commission objects to a proposed merger on the basis of, among other…
Economics has an increasingly important role in merger assessment. Hardly anyone can imagine trying to build a solid major merger case anymore without paying at least some attention to the indirect evidence gained from analyzing the set of indicative economic factors of the case at hand. Whilst there are differences e.g. between different NCA’s and…
In his last blog, Thomas Graf pointed out, as brilliantly and persuasively as he customarily does, the key features and implications of the Jan. 11, 2012decision of the Italian Antitrust Authority (“IAA”) in the Pfizer case, coming to the conclusion that “The intervention of the Italian Authority therefore expands the application of Article 102 TFEU…
On 14 February, the Court of Justice will deliver a ruling on a preliminary reference by a Czech Regional Court in Brno, which is likely to provide welcome guidance on the issue of parallel proceedings within the ECN and the principle of ne bis in idem. The case concerns the legality of the Czech NCA’s…
