On March 25, the European Commission (EC) fined Nike €12.5 million for restricting cross-border and online sales of branded merchandise by its European licensees. In December last year, the EC fined Guess €40 million for imposing restrictions on the use of its brand by distributors online. In total in 2018, the EC imposed fines of…
The Regional office of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Sverdlovsk region has recently issued a decision ordering a leniency applicant to return unlawfully gained income. The Appeal Board of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (the “FAS”) has now reconsidered this decision on appeal. Background of the case The ground for initiating the case was the…
The European Commission’s Chief Competition Economist in a recent presentation specifically referred to the notion of “platform envelopment” and the possibilities of leverage.[1] His social-media posts about the power of search engines and browsers to gain advantages in other areas, such as videos, maps and shopping, suggest a sense of insecurity about the growing influence…
Introduction In April 2019, the Turkish Competition Authority (“TCA”) released its reasoned decision,[1] as a result of its full-fledged investigation concerning the practices of the companies that operate in the “meal card services” sector.[2] The TCA found, contrary to its findings in its annulled decision (dated 01.07.2010 and numbered 10-47/862-299), that Sodexo Avantaj ve Ödüllendirme…
The England and Wales Court of Appeal has overturned the Decision of the United Kingdom Competition Appeals Tribunal (CAT) in the collective proceedings Walter Merricks v MasterCard, where final consumers are represented by Merricks. This is an important decision because it ensures that financial damages are recoverable when a firm’s anti-competitive practices affect millions of…
After Google has been fined several times for breach of (EU) competition rules the last couple of years, it might now be Apple’s turn. Last month (March 2019), Spotify filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission. The Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets (“ACM”) immediately responded by stating that ACM is finalizing its…
In 2016, the Bulgarian Commission for Protection of Competition (“BCPC”) was notified for the intention of two of the biggest Bulgarian companies operating on the market of the manufacturing, repair and trade of defence-related products to merge. EMKO Ltd. aimed to acquire direct and sole control over Dunarit JSC by means of purchasing newly issued…
Confidentiality, an inherent feature in commercial arbitration and a preferred one too, is of great importance to antitrust proceedings when information is supplied by any party. There are, however, two concepts envisaged within the Competition Act, confidentiality and privacy, although the nomenclature used in the General Regulations, 2009 is ‘confidentiality’ and this does not include…
Debate in the competition law community has intensified around the issue of enforcement in digital markets in recent months with (yet another) significant antitrust fine being levied against Google,[1]Amount of actual fine may vary the Bundeskartellamt’s Facebook decision, and (most recently) the European Commission’s Report on Competition policy for the digital era.[2]http://ec.europa.eu/competition/publications/reports/kd0419345enn.pdf The emergence of…
Common ownership currently is one of the focus topics in the antitrust community. Einer Elhauge, a Harvard Law professor, has called it the “greatest anticompetitive threat of our times”. Others believe that there is no issue at all. The below gives an overview on the status of the debate and analyses the recent EU Commission…
