Canada’s first competition legislation was enacted in 1889, with the intention of combatting the price-fixing and other anti-competitive conduct of so-called “combinations”. Trade and professional associations figured prominently among the “combinations” alleged to have engaged in this anti-competitive behaviour. As one observer commented at the time, “there are few branches of trade in this or…
Shortly after revealing proposed amendments to the Competition and Consumer Protection Act (for details, please see my post from May 22), the Polish Competition Authority (the President of the Office for Protection of Competition and Consumers) published draft guidelines on commitment decisions (“Guidelines”). Since PCA nowadays uses commitment decisions increasingly often (125 such decisions were…
At the end of last week, the European Competition Network (“ECN”) published a report on the competition law enforcement and market monitoring activities by the European competition authorities in the food sector. The report is an important reminder of the fact that at both the European and national level the EU food sector has been…
Cross-border antitrust enforcement issues are back on the agenda. The recent Toshiba judgment of the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) has confirmed a number of principles governing the network enforcement system set forth in the EU by Regulation 1/2003. Recent national decisions involving the same companies and/or closely related sectors (e.g., the flour milling industry)…
(1) Significant changes to the Polish Competition Law are on the way. One could probably not imagine a better case for a debut in this blog. The Polish Competition Authority, or PCA (the President of the Office for Protection of Competition and Consumers), revealed last week details of the awaited proposal of far-reaching changes to…
At the end of March, the European Commission fined Czech energy companies Energetický a průmyslový and EP Investment Advisors EUR2.5 million for obstructing a dawn raid which European Commission officials carried out as part of an antitrust investigation. This is the first time that the European Commission has fined a company for the specific violation…
We live in a world of network antitrust enforcement, to borrow the expression introduced by H. First a decade ago (here) to refer to the loose arrangements among the federal agencies and/or State Attorneys General offices presiding over the enforcement of federal and state antitrust laws in the US. This is increasingly the case on…
In her recent Opinion in the KME case, AG Sharpston ventured a few considerations on the nature of EU antitrust decisions and on the due process requirements arising from Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on the right to a fair trial, to be added to a growing list of signals perceptible in recent judgments of a progressive move toward a broader interpretation of the EU Courts unlimited jurisdiction and, possibly, the exercise of full appellate jurisdiction over Commission decisions imposing fines.
In a speech delivered last week at the IBA annual competition conference, Commissioner Almunia engaged the audience on the sensitive topic of due process and competition enforcement. Among the reasons justifying his overall satisfaction with the current EU enforcement system, he mentioned the review by the European courts, which forms “an integral part of competition…
With the recent adoption of competition law statutes in East and South Asia and reforms completed or under way in Latin America, among other developments, the design – and enforcement – of competition principles for the global economy has attracted renewed interest on the part of practitioners and academics alike.
