Competition policy, Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, European Commission, Ex ante regulation

(University Villanueva, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

On 9 October 2023, the European Commission (EC) issued four templates on its official website pertaining to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Each of them deals with a different provision enshrined in the regulatory framework. First of all, the European Commission published its updated Template for Reporting pursuant to Article 11 of the DMA following…

Anticompetitive agreements, Guidelines, Netherlands, Sustainability

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More than three years after it published the first draft guidelines on sustainability agreements, the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) adopted a final policy rule titled ‘ACM’s oversight of sustainability agreements’ (Policy Rule). The Policy Rule aims at providing insight into how the ACM applies competition rules to sustainability agreements and how the…

Abuse of dominance, Damages, National court, Portugal, Private actions, Private enforcement, Regulation

(Universidade do Porto)/ /1 Comment

On September 25th the Lisbon Court of Appeal (TRL) upheld the essence of a 2022 ruling by the Portuguese Competition Court, which in turn had already upheld the 2019 decision of the Portuguese Competition Authority (PCAC) in the EDP case, condemning it to a fine of €40 million – the largest fine ever imposed in…

Abuse of dominance, Czech Republic, Damages, European Court of Justice, National court, Private actions, Private enforcement

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Summary of Facts On 21 September 2023 the Advocate General Juliane Kokott presented her opinion in the Case C-605/21, Heureka Group a.s. v. Google LLC. The opinion addresses a request for a preliminary ruling from the Prague Municipal Court, which is hearing Heureka’s follow-on action against Google based on the Commission’s Decision C(2017) 4444 final…

Abuse of dominance, Data protection, Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, European Commission, European Court of Justice, Germany, Google, National competition authorities (NCAs)

(University Villanueva, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

On 5 October 2023, the German competition authority adopted its first tangible evidence of enforcement surrounding its new competition rules (Section 19a GWB) directed at undertakings with paramount significance for competition across markets on its case against Google for its data processing terms (see the Bundeskartellamt’s decision designating Alphabet here and a previous comment on…

Advocate General, Damages, Digital, National court, United Kingdom

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On 21 September 2023, Advocate General (AG) Kokott delivered an opinion on the application of limitation rules for antitrust damages actions (Opinion) in the context of a preliminary ruling reference. She invited the Court of Justice to rule, among other things, that the limitation periods may not start to run until the relevant anticompetitive conduct…

Merger control, Merger notification, Merger regulation, Merger Thresholds, Mergers, Morocco

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Effective 24 May 2023 the Moroccan legislator introduced new, increased merger control notification thresholds. While the increase in notification thresholds is welcome, the more relevant change is that the new turnover thresholds always require that the parties have turnover in Moroccan. While this change does not entirely resolve existing problems with a lack of local…

Anticompetitive agreements, Market definition, National competition authorities (NCAs), Restriction by effect, Restriction by object, Selective distribution, Spain

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On 12 July 2023, the Spanish National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) issued its decision in the case S/0013/21 – Amazon/Apple Brandgating (the Decision) imposing a fine of €143.6 million on Apple and Amazon for restricting inter and intra-brand competition in the sale of Apple products on the Spanish Amazon marketplace contrary to Articles 1…

Data protection, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, Regulation

(IMDEA Networks) and (University Villanueva, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

The data economy is now thriving. A considerable corporate, entrepreneurial and research effort is aimed to enable a healthy trading of such an important asset, and hence contribute to de-siloing data and unlocking the combinatorial economic value of data that now rest in different corporate warehouses. However, the structuring of data ecosystems is still under…

Abuse of dominance, Advantage, Advertising, App stores, Apple, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, European Commission, European Union, Ex ante regulation, Facebook

(University Villanueva, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

The wheels of the DMA have started turning and so have the International Law Talk episodes. I had the pleasure to interview Assimakis Komninos following the Commission’s press release establishing the economic operators that it had designated as gatekeepers under the DMA. This triggering event gave us the excuse to talk about a range of…