The December 24 announcement that the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) had reached an agreement in principle on a new Trade and Cooperation Agreement (the TCA) was greeted with sighs of relief on both sides of the Channel. For competition lawyers and parties engaged in M&A activities, however, the work of clarifying…
The Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) and Italian courts – and also the Italian legislator – have been quite active in 2020, despite the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 outbreak. Covid-19 Covid-19 was of course one of the main factors driving competition law and policy developments in Italy in 2020, bringing to light existing trends…
In the last few months, Competition Commission of India (CCI) took what most might view as an extremely lenient stance in two cartel cases; what is known as the most serious violations of competition law. Hard-core cartels are perceived as the “supreme evil of antitrust”[1]. It is then perplexing to understand why such cartels operating…
Digital antitrust Introduction The accelerated digitalisation of the economy has brought about fundamental structural changes: the emergence of world-class platforms, which benefit from network effects and access to considerable financial resources, the rapid shift from physical distribution to online sales, the appearance of new products and services based on technological innovation, algorithms, artificial intelligence or…
Early Warnings: Canada’s Regulators Issue Warning Letters to Mobile App Companies Anita Banicevic and Joshua Hollenberg, Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP In late November 2020, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) and the Competition Bureau (Bureau) announced the issuance of 36 warning letters to…
What an eventful year, also for competition law. The Kluwer Competition Law Blog has a little treat for you: a series of posts on the main 2020 developments in key jurisdictions by many of our dear contributors. We will release a number of articles in the next month. Today, we kick off with the EU!…
The plot of the case Two weeks ago, Apple Inc. filed a lawsuit against the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). The court hearing is scheduled for the 18th of January 2021 at the Commercial Court of Moscow city. The reason for such legal action is the fact that, at the end of August 2020, the FAS…
Large platforms acting as “digital gatekeepers” are increasingly drawing competition agencies’ attention. While no legal definition of a “gatekeeper” has been laid down yet,[1] this concept is meant to cover platforms that rely on significant network effects. A “gatekeeper” may also be a go-between, controlling access from one point to another. However, gatekeepers may refuse…
“I’ve been wondering how to give a metaphor because these are two quite complex proposals. And the best thing I came to think of was the first-ever traffic light that brought order in the streets, that was actually in the US, in Cleveland Ohio. And that was invented as a response to a major technological…
Ever since the 2001 Courage judgment, private actions for damages are on the rise. The Commission wanted to quickly follow with a legislative act including minimum standards for private enforcement across the EU. In the end, it took a while. In 2005, the authority published a Green Paper, in 2008 a substantially amended White Paper….
