A blog about the intersection of antitrust, foreign investment control, politics, and everything in between
The German Bundeskartellamt terminated its proceedings regarding price parity clauses against Lieferando, one of Germany's leading food delivery platforms. Since the Bundeskartellamt has been rather critical of price parity clauses in the past, the termination might have come as quite a surprise. This post takes a look at the reasons for terminating the proceedings and … Continue reading Less strict rules for parity clauses in Germany?
Anyone who still doubted that politics play an increasing role in antitrust should by now be convinced of the opposite: The recent appointment of the new Chief Economist at the European Commission is another instance where antitrust made it to the mainstream press across Europe. This post provides a short summary of what happened and … Continue reading Politics in antitrust – Look no further
Summertime is blockbuster time, and some blockbusters are just too good to be missed. Looking at current trends, sequels still seem to be a safe pair of hands. While I cannot comment on the new Indiana Jones or Mission Impossible yet, my (and potentially the rest of the antitrust world’s) jaw(s) dropped when reading about … Continue reading EC showing teeth: Record-breaking fine for Illumina AND Grail
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?
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