Abuse of dominance, Advocate General, European Court of Justice, Four-to-three Merger, General Court of the European Union, Guidelines, Horizontal, Judicial review, Merger control, Merger notification, Merger Thresholds

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Advocate General Kokott has found [1] that the General Court erred in law in requiring the European Commission to show anti-competitive effects of a merger with “strong probability” and that the scope of its judicial review was overly broad, notably in relation to economic evidence.   Key takeaways This case will give the Court of…

Anticompetitive agreements, European Commission, Guidelines

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Background In 2004, the European Union modernised the rules and procedures that govern the enforcement of its competition law. The entry into force of Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 on 1 May 2004 brought about the most comprehensive reform of the enforcement rules since they were first laid down in 1962. The EU moved from…

Abuse of dominance, Digital, Digital competition, Digital economy, Türkiye

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Introduction This blog post will give an overview of the draft amendment (the “Draft Amendment”) to Law No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (the “Law No. 4054”). The key points of the Draft Amendment concern: Introducing definitions of core platform services into Law No. 4054 and allowing the possibility to introduce regulations on the…

Abuse of dominance, Advocate General, European Court of Justice, European Union, Merger control, Merger Thresholds, Mergers

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Advocate General Juliane Kokott has proposed that the EU Court of Justice should find that competition authorities have the power to apply Article 102 TFEU to corporate transactions that are not reportable and test under that provision whether the transaction as such constitutes an abuse of a dominant position. However, a competition authority cannot in…

Damages, European Court of Justice, Jurisdiction, Liability, Parental liability

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In the MOL (C-425/22) case, the Hungarian court requests a preliminary ruling on whether the concept of an economic unit can be applied on the applicant’s side. This would allow to establish the forum of jurisdiction at the registered office of the parent company in the sense of Article 7(2) of Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 (Brussels…

Digital economy, Digital Services Act, European Union, Ex ante regulation, Regulation

(University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy)/ /1 Comment

The Digital Services Act: a primer Following its adoption by the Council on October 4, the final version of the Digital Services Act (DSA) has been approved and will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) in the forthcoming weeks. The DSA operates a major step in the ambitious project of…

Anticompetitive agreements, Competition enforcement, European Commission, European Union

(European University Institute)/ /Leave a comment

Last week, the European Commission adopted an updated version of its Informal Guidance Notice (“the IGN”), the mechanism that allows businesses to seek clarity regarding the compliance of specific activities with EU competition law. The substance of the IGN is animated by “guidance letters”, informal documents intended to provide legal certainty to undertakings facing novel…

Merger control, Merger notification, Merger Thresholds, Mergers, Türkiye

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Introduction The substantial rules of the Turkish merger control are taken from the corresponding EU provisions. The amendments to the Turkish Competition Law in 2020 introduced the SIEC test to improve the concentration control regime and harmonize it with the EU rules even further. The amended Merger Communique in 2022 revised the thresholds as a…

Anticompetitive agreements, Competition enforcement, Competition policy, European Commission, Ex ante regulatory assessment, Guidelines, Labour market

(Utrecht Law School)/ /1 Comment

On September 29th 2022, the Commission published Guidelines on the application of Union competition law to collective agreements regarding the working conditions of solo self-employed persons (hereinafter: the Guidelines). The first draft of this document was released almost a year ago as part of a package including a proposed Directive on platform work. The Guidelines,…

Canada, Green Deal, Guidelines, Mergers, Sustainability

, (Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP, Canada)/ /Leave a comment

In its first in-person event in more than two years, Canada’s Competition Bureau (the “Bureau”) hosted a summit on September 20, 2022, exploring the intersection between competition law and environmental/sustainability initiatives (details on the Competition and Green Growth Summit are available here). In doing so, the Bureau joins other agencies that have examined the impact…