A blog about the intersection of antitrust, foreign investment control, politics, and everything in between
In April 2020, as the world retreated behind webcams, Portuguese football club presidents hopped on a series of video calls. Their goal? Stability. Their method? A collective agreement to freeze the labour market. The result: A hefty fine from the local antitrust regulator and a legal odyssey. The European Court of Justice now handed down … Continue reading News on HR and antitrust: Room to justify no-poach agreements?
The German Federal Cartel Office hosted the “International Conference on Competition” last week. But this is not a conference report. Instead, it is a reflection on the overarching theme(s) I sensed across speeches, panels and those discussions over coffee and dinner. The antitrust community seems to be pulling in opposite directions. While most appear to … Continue reading Reflections on the current antitrust debate: Is the community losing the forest for the trees?
Price comparison platforms have become essential infrastructure for energy consumers – and now, one of the largest is being forced to change its business practices. The German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) announced earlier this week that it has accepted binding commitments from Check24 to abandon price parity clauses in its contracts with energy suppliers. The … Continue reading News on parity clauses: platform power and the Energiewende
By Tomáš Varšo, Aneta Králová and Robert Neruda, HAVEL & PARTNERS The Slovak Competition Authority (Protimonopolný úrad SR) has recently published an economic report that might break new ground in its policy. The watchdog conducted a comprehensive analysis that examines the competitive environment of the Slovak labour market. The study builds upon the increased interest … Continue reading The Slovak Study on Competition in the Labour Market: Changes in Much More Than Competition Policy?
As our regular readers know, M&A deals in Europe face a complex interplay of merger control, foreign investment control and the Foreign Subsidies Regulations. Three very recent transactions illustrate how these regimes shape deal strategy and timelines. This post will dive into initial lessons to be learned from Universal/Downtown Music, Snam/Open Grid Europe and ADNOC/Covestro. … Continue reading Merger Control, FDI and FSR: Lessons learned from recent deals
Like many other industries, the media sector is undergoing significant disruption, with linear TV increasingly losing relevance amid the rise of streaming platforms and alternatives such as social media. Regulators worldwide take these changes into account when assessing cooperations and transactions – particularly with regard to market definitions. Many cases have led to in-depth reviews … Continue reading Media mergers – more complex than ever?
Earlier this summer, in RWE/E.ON, the EU’s Court of Justice (CJEU) clarified the boundaries between merger control and antitrust enforcement, essentially holding that concerns relating to the EU’s cartel prohibition (Art. 101 TFEU) cannot be assessed as part of a merger control proceeding. But then last week, the European Commission approved Naspers’ acquisition of Just … Continue reading Minority shareholdings, merger control and cartel proceedings: Reconciling RWE/E.ON with Naspers/Just Eat
A recent LinkedIn post by one of my fellow blog editors and the number of likes corresponding comment thread inspired me to take a look at products that are prominent in the antitrust world in particular because of judgements by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Turns out: Many of them concern drinks. So here … Continue reading The ECJ pub crawl
So-called pay-for-delay cases are on their way to becoming a classic in the intersection of pharma and antitrust. As anything in this space, they are also somewhat political given the interest of public national health systems in lower prices. An opinion delivered this week by Advocate General Rantos to the European Court of Justice confirms … Continue reading An update on Pay-for-Delay
In his annual speech at the Studienvereinigung Kartellrecht in Bonn at the end of last year, the president of the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO), Andreas Mundt, emphasized that merger control might be the most interesting and relevant part of the regulator’s ongoing work. A recent decision by the Higher General Court of Düsseldorf supports … Continue reading Transaction value threshold – less transactions in scope than one would expect?
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