A blog about the intersection of antitrust, foreign investment control, politics, and everything in between
Co-authored by Carolin Goldbeck Sports content again!? Just as an opener for a broader topic: As repeatedly discussed on this blog (see, e.g., here and here), antitrust also applies with regard to sport. This is also true for professional football clubs, even though they are usually somewhat above the fray (at least for their fans). However, … Continue reading About football shirts and antitrust law
We like recurring themes on our blog. It has not been long since I wrote a post about the Kölsch part of the German beer cartel. But whilst a beer manufacturer will also be relevant in the following, I promise to leave out the folklore and focus on what the European Court of Justice (ECJ) … Continue reading A new hope for vertical price fixing?
The EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation will start to apply in about two weeks. While some things are still in limbo, the European Commission has published a Q&A to clarify certain topics. The Q&A admittedly went online earlier this month, but I could not find a good summary so far – so I thought the one … Continue reading Clarifications on Foreign Subsidies
I have to admit that golf is not (yet) my sport. However, on my way back from a client meeting last week, I listened to a really interesting podcast regarding the envisaged tie-up between the Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) and Saudi Arabia sponsored LIV Golf and remembered that we briefly mentioned the case in one … Continue reading A golf tie-up and its antitrust implications
Co-authored by Carolin Goldbeck Those of you who follow this blog closely will remember that we touched upon the Pharmaceutical Merger Task Force, consisting of American and European regulators, in a short paragraph a while ago (here). Back then, we did not see any dramatic changes in the approach of competition authorities to assess mergers … Continue reading Pharma and mergers – future alignment of multinational competition issues?
Even though it is raining while I am writing this, summertime is here, and with it high season for festivals and concerts. Agencies help with organizing and booking artists for these sorts of events. As in any other area, antitrust regulators are tasked with keeping the market open, at least to the extent they have … Continue reading Circumventing a merger prohibition
Co-authored by Kaya Ricken One might not see the connection between antitrust and animal welfare at first sight. Truth is that these topics have been closely linked for quite some time now. This became (again) obvious this week, when the German Animal Welfare Initiative (“Initiative Tierwohl”) reacted to the concerns of the German Federal Cartel Office … Continue reading Holy Cow: Antitrust supports Animal Welfare?
Game-changing regulations are shaking up the world of football agents. With FIFA's recently approved Football Agent Regulations set to take full effect on 1 October 2023, players, clubs, and agents are bracing themselves for a new era of oversight and transparency. FIFA’s interests and those of the agents seem to be at odds. With first … Continue reading FIFA’s Football Agent Regulations – Next round of antitrust disputes
Last week, the European Commission received a merger notification concerning the takeover of the Germany-based market research company GfK by NielsenIQ. Apart from the fact that these two companies are well known in the antitrust community for the market data they provide, one might wonder why the case makes it into our blog (which is … Continue reading Pull & Refile
Antitrust used to be a niche. Known to practitioners and experts, of course. Cases were kept, progressed, and negotiated in that environment. Those times are long gone. We have seen an increasing trend towards companies turning to publicity and PR campaigns as a tool in both merger control and antitrust proceedings. PR work is used … Continue reading PR campaigns in antitrust
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