Competition enforcement, Enforcement, United States of America

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On July 14, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission, announced the withdrawal of two antitrust policy statements related to enforcement in healthcare markets: Statements of Antitrust Enforcement Policy in Health Care, published in August 1996, and Statement of Antitrust Enforcement Policy Regarding Accountable Care Organizations Participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program from October 2011. This…

Abuse of dominance, Book review, European Union

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Platform regulation and the functioning of ecosystems have been two elusive concepts to tackle from a neutral perspective, away from the polarised narratives advocated by different schools of thought on both sides of the Atlantic. The General Court’s rulings in both Google Shopping and Google Android are good proof of that. Against this titanic challenge,…

Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, Ex ante regulation, Germany, Google

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On 21 June 2023, the Bundeskartellamt, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO), sent a statement of objections to Google and published its preliminary legal assessment of Google’s practices in connection with Google Automotive Services (GAS). According to the Authority’s preliminary evaluation, Google’s practices regarding the licencing of services for infotainment systems in vehicles fulfil the requirements…

Litigation, Private actions, Private enforcement, United Kingdom

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With a much-unanticipated outcome, on 26 July 2023, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (UKSC) finally handed down its long-expected judgement in R (on the application of PACCAR Inc and others) v Competition Appeal Tribunal and others [2023] UKSC 28, a decision that is considered to have a significant hit on the litigation funding…

Amazon, Apple, Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Digital markets, Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, Ex ante regulation, Facebook, Google, Governance, Procedures, Proportionality

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On the 31st of July, the European Commission issued for public consultation its (fourth) Template relating to the audited description of consumer profiling techniques pursuant to Article 15 of the DMA (the Template). The Template is inserted within the Commission’s wider transparency strategy to provide for a stream of implementing acts to secure the DMA’s…

Advocate General, European Court of Justice, European Union, Fundamental rights, Regulation, SGEI

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My previous comment on Case-50/21 Prestige and Limousine SL v Área Metropolitana de Barcelona et al (see here) started with the following question: “Are the Supposed Regulatory Privileges of the Taxi Sector Coming to an End? The Opinion of AG Szpunar in Case C‑50/21”. The conclusions in the ECJ judgment of June 8, 2023 (Judgment)…

Abuse of dominance, Anticompetitive agreements, Arbitration, Legitimate objective, Price fixing, Sport

(Universidad CEU San Pablo)/ /1 Comment

On 24 July 2023, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) issued a very relevant award in case CAS 2023/O/9370 Professional Football Agents Association (PROFAA) v. FIFA (the Award), in which it examined various claims of illegality of the new FIFA Football Agents Regulations (FFAR) under several areas of law, most importantly those under EU…

Competition Law 2022

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The Kluwer Competition Law Blog will remain open but will slow down a bit in the coming weeks. We hope you are having a wonderful summer! If you don’t want to miss out on reading about competition law developments in the meantime, we recommend catching up on our series on the main 2022 developments in…

European Commission, Ex ante regulation, Financial markets

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Introduction On 28 June 2023, the European Commission announced the long-awaited Single Currency Package which consists of two Regulation proposals. The first proposed Legal Tender Cash Regulation (Regulation on the legal tender of euro banknotes and coins) aims to preserve the effectiveness of the legal tender status of euro-denominated cash. The second proposed Digital Euro…

European Commission, European Union, Foreign subsidies, Foreign Subsidy Regulation, Merger notification, Mergers

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The EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation took effect on 12 July 2023 to much fanfare. We take a look at the top five things PE funds need to know when considering acquisitions with a European footprint. The Foreign Subsidies Regulation (“FSR”) is the European Commission’s attempt to level the playing field for M&A deals by creating…