Year at a glance 2022 brought a major legislative overhaul, with the Slovenian parliament adopting a new Competition Act (“Competition Act”; sl. Zakon o preprečevanju omejevanja konkurence 2). While turnover thresholds remained unchanged, the Competition Act introduced the much-awaited simplified notification procedure (akin to Short Form CO). Despite the inflationary environment and raising interest rates,…
The preliminary ruling of 12 January 2023 in RegioJet can easily be perceived as a continuation of the jurisprudence on disclosure rules that was developed by the European Court of Justice (the Court or ECJ) in the case of C-163/21 – PACCAR. The PACCAR case concerned specific questions of disclosure of documents, which were not…
Over the last five years, mass litigation in the field of antitrust in Spain has rapidly increased. The so-called “Trucks Cartel Litigation” has generated thousands of judgements and dozens of referrals to the CJEU. These judgements and referrals have allowed national courts and the CJEU to clarify several legal questions, such as the temporal application…
Jurisdiction after DB Station At the end of last year, the ECJ rendered a much-anticipated ruling in the DB Station case (C-721/10), which fundamentally clarified the hierarchy between regulators and civil courts in abuse of dominance cases relating to regulated infrastructure sectors. After lengthy national proceedings, the ECJ decided that national civil courts can only…
In recent years, competition authorities around the world have been scrutinising new types of behaviour that might be deemed abusive within the context of antitrust laws. Although those relating to digital markets receive the most attention, not a day passes by without a surprising decision announced by the authorities or competent courts. The decision of…
In Turkey, a Phase II review takes 228 days on average, almost eight months from the day of merger notification. Although the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) has prohibited only five proposed transactions during its 25-year tenure, both behavioural (11 cases) and structural remedies (15 cases) were imposed. The TCA conducted merger simulations in four cases,…
Background It has become usual in Spain’s FDI system for reforms to be introduced by measures formally unrelated to FDI. The latest reform is no exception and Articles 61 and 62 of Royal Decree Law 20/2022, of 27 December, addressing the economic and social consequences of the war in Ukraine, supporting the reconstruction of the Island…
On 19 January 2023, the EU Court of Justice, answering questions from the Italian Council of State, confirmed that the Intel effects-based approach applies also to exclusive dealing practices and held that competition authorities must duly examine economic evidence produced by dominant undertakings. The court also held that, under certain narrow circumstances, conduct implemented by…
In November 2022, the European Commission published its draft revision of the Market Definition Notice. This is the first time the Notice was revised since its adoption in 1997. The draft revised Notice on Market Definition is an impressive piece of work, which makes clear strides in updating the Market Definition Notice for the future….
General considerations During 2022 there have been no changes regarding the competition law since it was last enacted in 2018. The bill approved by the Senate in February 2021 amending certain aspects of the law, was not discussed at the House of Deputies during 2022 and is expected to lose parliamentary status in February 2023….
