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

, , , , , , (White & Case)/ /Leave a comment

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…

Information exchange, Pricing, Standard of Proof, Türkiye

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Introduction The automotive sector has been on the radar of the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) for a long time. In this sense, the TCA conducted an investigation (“Investigation”) regarding the allegations that some undertakings operating in the first-hand and second-hand automotive markets violated Law. No. 4054 on the Protection of Competition (“Competition Law”) via stockpiling…

Amazon, India, Merger control, Merger notification, Mergers, Minority shareholding, Misleading information

(National Law University)/ /Leave a comment

Background Amazon.com Inc. recently approached the Supreme Court against the decision of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), where the Tribunal affirmed the ruling of the Competition Commission of India (CCI). The impugned decision of the Tribunal upheld the penalty order against Amazon.com, on the basis of non-disclosure and suppression of material information in…

Burden of Proof, Foreign direct investment, Spain

, (Pérez-Llorca, Spain)/ /Leave a comment

Almost two and a half years have passed since Spain’s Royal Decree Laws 8/2020, of 17 March, on extraordinary urgent measures to address the economic and social impact of COVID-19, 11/2020, of 31 March, adopting additional urgent social and economic measures to address COVID-19, and 34/2020, of 17 November, on urgent measures to support business…