In this latest instalment of the Trucks Cartel saga, the Amsterdam District Court (“District Court”) refutes the cartelists’ arguments by ruling that the issue of the award of damages is still on the table.[1] The liability of the cartelist is thereby established. This is the first step in the actual award of damages. The next…
According to a recent press release by the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (AFCA), in the course of a general market and media monitoring AFCA became aware of the merger between the two US-based companies Facebook and GIPHY, which took place in May 2020, and consequently initiated investigations based on suspicion of a violation of the standstill…
The unnecessary delay and piling up of cases are amongst the predicament of the Indian Judicial System. And the existence of this intricacy is not limited to the judiciary, it also stretches to other regulatory aspects and administrative systems across our country. Even specific tribunals and regulatory bodies are lagging behind in keeping pace with…
In October 2019, Ukrainian news feeds ‘exploded’ as the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (‘AMC‘, ‘Committee‘) imposed a record-breaking fine of a total of about €240 million for a long-lasting cigarette cartel (‘AMC Decision‘) (‘Tobacco Case‘). The respondents in the Tobacco Case are four large cigarette manufacturers – British American Tobacco, Philip Morris, Japan Tobacco, Imperial…
On 24th January 2021, the Competition Commission of India (‘CCI’) joined an exclusive club of competition law regulators around the world to initiate action in the area of privacy and competition law. The CCI passed a suo moto order directing an investigation into Whatsapp for alleged abuse of dominance as per the Competition Act, 2002…
The European Commission’s 254-page decision approving Google’s acquisition of Fitbit (the “Decision”) offered the Commission a so-far unique opportunity to apply the 2019 report on “Competition policy for the digital era’s” (the “Digital Era Report’s”) recommendation to assess acquisitions by “gatekeeper platforms” of much smaller companies active in complementary markets using an “ecosystem” approach. Google/Fitbit…
The draft Digital Markets Act (DMA) has been public for several months now (see a previous blog for our initial review when the draft came out) and opinions on its content continue to roll in. In brief, the DMA aims to lay down a set of rules for certain crucial platform services, so-called gatekeepers. EU…
On 9 June 2021, the European Commission (EC) published a Preliminary Report setting out the initial findings of its sector inquiry into the consumer Internet of Things (“IoT”). The consumer IoT sector encompasses services, devices and technologies that support the interaction of consumers with connected devices, which collect and exchange data over the internet. The…
Recent developments in digitalization have triggered the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) to scrutinize more closely e-marketplace business models. The TCA has carried out a sector inquiry on e-marketplaces for this purpose and a preliminary report (“Report”) has been published on the official website of the TCA on May 7, 2021, in which a wide range…
On May 27, 2021, the Commercial Court of Moscow City backed the Federal Antimonopoly Services of Russia (FAS) in a case against HeadHunter, a platform that provides a job search service in Russia. HeadHunter had blocked clients from using the program Robot Vera from its competitor Stafori to automate recruitment services. Instead, HeadHunter offered its…
