Canadian Threshold for Merger Review on the Decline The Canadian Competition Bureau has announced that, effective immediately, the Competition Act’s pre-merger notification threshold relating to transaction size will decrease to $93 million from the 2020 threshold of $96 million. This threshold requires that the target business have assets in Canada or annual revenues in or…
A February 4 conference on competition policy and the Green Deal sponsored by the European Commission’s (the Commission’s) Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP) highlighted the divergences of opinions among antitrust officials and other stakeholders on how competition policy should support sustainability objectives. DG COMP aims to take a leading role on sustainability issues; its October-November…
With the adoption of the 10th amendment to the Act against Restraints of Competition (ARC, ‘Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen’) on 14.01.2021 by the German Parliament (’Bundestag’), the curtain will lower on an antitrust opera [previously reported by Silke Heinz here]: ‘The Abduction from (not the Seraglio) the Düsseldorf Court of Appeals’. Overture For the following,…
The digitalisation of the modern economy poses new diverse tasks for the legislator and dispute resolution bodies. It is expected that said digitalisation will affect various industries and segments of the economy. In this sense, relations pertaining to the protection of competition will also be affected by the mentioned process. Particular attention is drawn to…
We are continuing with our competition law issues of the International Law Talk Podcast. Two weeks ago, I talked to Oliver Bretz, founding partner at Euclid Law and a merger expert, about the fragmentation of EU merger control. We focused particularly on the changes in the EU one-stop-systems through Brexit, the increasing use of EU…
In today’s judgment in the case C‑595/18 P – Goldman Sachs v Commission, the European Court of Justice (ECJ or Court) expanded the rebuttable presumption of decisive influence relating to the parental liability doctrine. According to the parental liability doctrine, a parent company can be liable for anti-competitive conduct of its subsidiary when the parent…
What were competition law developments in Serbia during 2020 worth mentioning and what to keep an eye on 2021? Merger control Merger notification thresholds remain unchanged A well-known trait of Serbia’s merger control regime is extremely low merger filing thresholds – they are so low, in fact, that around a half of all merger notifications in…
This overview covers the main developments in competition law in Portugal in the course of 2020. This year is inevitably marked by the outburst of the Covid-19 pandemic, which seriously affected the world economy generating enormous costs for companies in most sectors. This situation was reflected in an unprecedented wave of State aid granted by…
5 Key Takeaways More Deals Take Longer More deals than ever before involved extended CCPC reviews. Of 42 deals notified, 10 involved merger review delays of at least 3 months. Two “Phase 2” reviews, both on going as of 15/01/2021, have each taken 11 months already. According to the CCPC, this trend reflects “the complex…
2020: Business as usual (more or less) While over the past year COVID has had a major impact on our lives in many areas, it left Swiss competition law practice refreshingly unimpressed. In late March 2020, in the middle of the first lockdown, the Swiss Competition Commission (“ComCo“) issued a clear message: Swiss competition law…
