On 10 May 2022, the European Commission (“EC”) published a new Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (“VBER”) and guidelines on vertical restraints (“Vertical Guidelines”) that will enter into force on 1 June 2022. The package introduces important changes for the treatment of distribution agreements under EU competition law, in particular to the rules governing the combination…
Switzerland is one of the world’s largest recipients of foreign investments – but does not yet have a general regime for the systematic screening of foreign investments. As mandated by Parliament, the Federal Council, the Swiss government, has now issued a preliminary draft legislation for public consultation proposing to introduce a foreign investment regime in…
On 24 February 2022, the Parliament of Ukraine, in connection with the large-scale military aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, approved a decree of the President of Ukraine on the imposition of martial law in the country. The military aggression has significantly affected the activities of most public authorities in Ukraine, including the Ukrainian…
At the beginning of May 2022, the Supreme Court of Israel decided, having confirmed the position of the lower instance, that a boycott of tender construction companies should be regarded as a violation of competition law. According to the highest judicial instance of Israel, the joint decision of the competitors not to bid constitutes a…
Central-Eastern European countries such as Poland may serve as an interesting point of reference for generally studying major trends in competition law and policy and, more specifically, in post-transformation countries. Their experience may reveal characteristics not present in the case of Western European EU Member States. Moreover, they face specific challenges linked to the way…
On 12 May 2022, the European Court of Justice delivered its preliminary ruling in response to a number of questions referred to it by an Italian court tasked to assess whether the use of customer data (legitimately collected by the ENEL group during a legal monopoly position) to target offers to those same customers once…
Exactly one year after the European Commission (Commission) proposed the Anti-Subsidy Regulation (the Regulation) (discussed on KCLB already here and here), on May 5, 2022, EU legislators launched their “trilogue” negotiations to reach an agreement on the final text. The Regulation is a global first. It combines elements of traditional merger control, EU State aid review…
I. Cartels Legal Framework and Procedure In November 2021, Austria adopted a regulation on certain procedural aspects of leniency applications.[2] The regulation sets out the required content of leniency and immunity applications, the possibility to request a marker, and the possibility to submit a short form application in case the applicant has already submitted an…
In 2017 the ECJ decided in its CTL Logistics judgment (C‑489/15, CTL Logistics, ECLI:EU:C:2017:834) that national civil courts must not examine railway charges if they fall under the competence of a railway regulator under Directive 2001/14/EC (now Directive 2012/34/EU) under equity (§ 315 German Civil Code, “BGB”). AG Ćapeta recently suggested reconsidering this case law…
In February 2022, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development announced that the Canadian government was evaluating ways to improve the operation of Canada’s Competition Act (Act). The Minister said that changes would be made in multiple stages, with some initial amendments to be proposed in the following months that would have “an immediate…
