A blog about the intersection of antitrust, foreign investment control, politics, and everything in between
On 10 May 2022, the European Commission published its new Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER), which will enter into force in June. Many have published very good summaries on the rules. Some also welcomed the very late changes that were made with regard to information exchange in the context of dual distribution. In this post, … Continue reading The Vertical Block Exemption – how we got where we are
A month ago, we started our new series about the history of challenging big tech with a post on Microsoft’s interoperability and Media Player case. Since we cover the cases in this series by their start date rather than their end date, today we report on a case that has not ended yet but began … Continue reading A history of challenging big tech – Part II: CPUs & Rebates
The process for introducing new EU rules on companies that receive foreign subsidies has really sped up. EU lawmakers are now in so-called “trilogue” discussions meant to finalise the “Foreign Subsidies Regulation” still this year. The regulation will affect companies in M&A transactions and in public procurement bids, and will basically introduce yet another review … Continue reading EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation: State of Play
Big tech, sports, labour markets and authorities' rediscovered delight in unannounced inspections – the week has been full of news regarding antitrust’s most trending topics. As we blogged about most of them before (or wrote about them somewhere else), we could not decide which of them drew most of our attention. So, we opted to … Continue reading Tech, sports and…Greece – A week full of news
We have given our readers a short overview about the history of foreign investment control in Germany here and have also blogged about certain cases (here). Yesterday, news broke that the German government is set to block the acquisition of Heyer Medical AG by the Chinese Aeonmed – a deal that apparently closed more than … Continue reading Update on German FDI – Government about to prohibit medical deal
Everyone speaks about regulating big tech. We have also blogged about this topic several times (inter alia here, here and here). In the context of the current discussion, however, it should not be forgotten that "regulating big tech" already has a certain history. The current draft of the Digital Markets Act also contains some provisions … Continue reading A history of challenging big tech – Part I: Interoperability and a Media Player
There has been quite some talk lately about how the European Commission and national regulators will deal with their respective competences once the Digital Market Act has been set into force. In merger control, referrals in both directions are well established with some very crucial legal and political questions currently in the spotlight. An opportunity … Continue reading Take it or leave it: Referrals in the EU
After more than two years of Covid 19, people strive to meet in person again. In addition to personal meetings in the private sphere, in-person meetings in the business environment are also on the rise again. Of course, this also includes conferences, many of which have not taken place or have only taken place virtually … Continue reading Antitrust likes to meet
While cooperations between competing undertakings stay under heavy scrutiny, there seems to be a trend of regulators cooperating cross-border. Those cooperations often concern (a growing number of) topics that are perceived to be wider than national, and that regulators might think can only be properly tackled together. Here is a rundown of fora which have … Continue reading Cross-border cooperation of regulators – a trend for many topics
Fuel prices in Germany and many other countries are rising to heights that were hardly imaginable some time ago. This has led to increasing calls from politicians in recent days for an antitrust review of petrol pricing. In this post, we take a look at respective antitrust actions in the past, try to speculate why … Continue reading All one giant cartel?
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