competitionlaw

By a decision made on 12 June 2014 (Case I782 MilitaryArsenals ), the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an Article 101 TFEU investigation into an alleged cartel in the defense sector following a report lodged by the Minister of Defence (MOD). The ICA will examine the conducts of 14 defense contractors that have been alleged to have carried out bid rigging practices. The parties coordinated their behaviours with regard to three competitive tender procedures launched by the MOD for the award of a contract for the work of asbestos removal from military vessels. The MOD reported a strong parallelism in the conduct of the parties in the bidding for the tendered contracts. First, the parties set up three joint-ventures with the purpose to bid. The joint ventures consistently had the same leader and membership. Second, the parties followed the same behavioural pattern. In the first phase of the tender procedure only two joint-venture filed the request to make a bid. In the se...

The compatibility of restrictive national regimes on Sunday trading with the internal market law have long discussed in the past. The Court of Justice of the EU (CJ) has recently dealt with this issue again in Pelckmans Turnhout v Van Gastel (C-483/12). Van Gastel opened its garden centres to the public seven days a week. The plaintiff Pelckmans brought proceedings against Van Gastel before the Commercial Court of Antwerp, arguing that by opening its shops the whole weak the defendant breached the Belgian laws that prohibits traders from opening their establishments seven days a weak but for some exceptional cases. The defendant submitted that the provisions were contrary to Belgian Constitution and the Court referred the constitutionality question to the Constitutional Court. Then, the Constitutional Court stayed proceedings and referred to the CJ, among other things, the question whether the contested national provisions breached Articles 34 and 36 TFEU on the free movemen...