competitionlaw

By the decision made on 29 September 2016 in Aspen [i] , the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has imposed a fine of more than EUR 5 million on the Aspen group (Aspen), a South African manufacturer of generic drugs. Aspen violated Article 102 TFEU by imposing excessive prices for the supply of the so-called ‘Cosmos drugs’. These drugs included Leukeran, Alkeran, Purinethol and Tioguanine, which included the active principles of chlorambucil, melphalan, mercaptopurine and tioguanine, respectively. All these drugs were used to treat cancer pathologies and included in a wider package of pharmaceutical products, whose marketing rights had been purchased by Aspen from the originator GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2009. Aspen had a dominant position in the relevant product markets for the commercialization of anti-cancer drugs manufactured using the active principles of alkeran, leukeran, purinethol and tioguanine. It had the only one market authorization for the sale of drugs and potential

By a decision made on 30 September 2016 in the Forum pour l’emploi case, the Conseil de la concurrence or Luxembourg Competition Authority (LCA) has considered whether the pricing policies applied by Asbl Forum pour l’emploi (FPE) amounted to a predatory pricing banned by Article 102 TFEU and the corresponding Article 5 of the Luxembourg Competition Act [1] . Eventually, the LCA cleared FPE of all the allegations given that FPE did not have a dominant position in the relevant market and was not subject to the special responsibilities of dominant firms under competition law. FPE was a not-for-profit entity whose statutory task is to reduce the unemployment rate in Luxembourg. In December 2015 the LCA opened an antitrust investigation against FPE, following the receipt of a complaint filed by its competitor W ä schfra. Considering that FPE was beneficiary of financial aid granted by the Luxembourg public authorities, W ä schfra claimed that FPE was in the position to offer customers

By the decision handed down in the case SNCF Mobilités/EIL the European Commission has conditionally approved the SNCF Mobilités acquisition of Eurostar International Limited. The decision is worth being read as it gives an insight into the creative proactive approach that the Commission may take in fashioning remedies for problematic mergers in the network industries in support of the sector specific regulation. The article can be read here