A blog about the intersection of antitrust, foreign investment control, politics, and everything in between
In part IV of our series on antitrust and the political system, Christoph Haid, partner at Austrian law firm schoenherr, reviews the last year that brought significant changes to the Austrian authority and the competition law regime. An abrupt ending to a year long reign, with a new election scheduled for 2022 – what sounds … Continue reading Antitrust and the Political System – Austria: A review of 2021
The European Commission has published its final report on the sector inquiry into the consumer Internet of Things (IoT), i.e., into “smart devices” like wearables, smart speakers or smart home products. The document is a pretty crisp summary of the consumer IoT as the Commission sees it and contains quite a number of hints on … Continue reading A few thoughts on the European Commission’s Internet of Things Sector Inquiry
The UK competition regulator CMA has ordered Facebook* to divest Giphy. Earlier this year, the CMA cleared Facebook’s acquisition of Kustomer in Phase I, a deal now under heavy scrutiny by the European Commission. As much as antitrust regulators emphasize a tough stance on acquisitions by big tech, is there a risk of diverging views? … Continue reading Facebook, Giphy, Kustomer – Regulators’ views diverging?
There currently is much debate about how joint purchasing should be assessed going forward, and whether existing purchasing alliances should face greater scrutiny. This piece highlights three key points on joint purchasing, antitrust, and the involved politics. The European Commission lays out its view of joint purchasing in its Horizontal Guidelines, published already in 2011. … Continue reading Joint purchasing – Three key points in the current clash
This year, a number of senior officials moved from some of Europe’s most important antitrust regulators into private practice. While these have not been the first times that high-ranking officials switched sides, several departures across Europe took place around the same time lately and regulators seem to deal with them quite differently.
This post takes a closer look at three of the transactions currently undergoing review in Europe with the heaviest political implications, and on what can be drawn from them. With M&A activity on record levels, times will be far from boring for antitrust and foreign investment control regulators. While transactions will be assessed on the … Continue reading A look at three of Europe’s most political transactions right now
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