competitionlaw

The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has recently handed down a judgement on the Commission v Hansestadt Lübeck [1] , by which it rejected all the grounds of appeal submitted by the European Commission against the first instance judgment made by the General Court of the EU (GC) [2] . Upholding all the challenged rulings of the CJ, the CJEU confirmed that the CJ was right in setting aside the decision of the Commission to open a State aid investigation into the airport fees set by the Lübeck Airport amounted to State aid. The reason why the EU courts decided against the Commission was because the contested measures did not meet the selectivity requirement that is one of the condition for the application of Article 107(1) TFEU. The decision of the Commission In February 2012, the Commission opened a formal investigation against the Lübeck Airport pursuant to Article 108(2) TFEU [3] . The target of the Commission’s investigation was the 2006 schedule of airports charges and fees ...

Recently, the European Commission has conditionally authorized the Microsoft acquisition of LinkedIn by imposing a number of remedies to address the competition problems, mainly in the shape of foreclosing effects, that are expected to stem from the transaction in the market for professional social network services. From what can be inferred from the press release published on its site competition website, it appears that to vet the Microsoft/LinkedIn merger the Commission may have followed a stricter approach than its past decisional practice concerning digital markets mergers. The full text of the article is available here .   

The judgment handed down the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in Dowling and Others [1] focuses on the interaction between reorganization measures adopted by a EU Member States on the basis of EU Law and the protection of the rights of shareholders and creditors enshrined by the Second Company Directive. In that judgment, consistently with its past case law, the CJEU reached the conclusion that, in some circumstances, the need to preserve the stability of financial markets prevails should be preferred over the protection of shareholders’ rights. Irish Life and Permanent (ILP), now Permanent TSB, was a credit institution (the Bank) operating in Ireland, whose share capital of ILP was wholly owned by Irish Life and Permanent Group holdings (ILPGH or the Company), now Permanent Group Holdings. Sadly, the Bank was severely affected by 2008 financial crisis. Under the 2010 Memorandum of Understanding signed by Ireland with the European Commission and in accordance to the EU Decision 2...

On 7 December 2016 the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has decide to start an Article 101 TFEU investigation against 12 major insurance firms in Italy in the Case I802 ( Aumentiprezzi RCA concordati ). The ICA feared that the parties may have entered into an anti-competitive agreement to fix the premiums for motor vehicle insurance. Interestingly, the ICA decision was grounded on the statements made by the CEO of two insurance firms. The CEO of Unipol predicted an increase in insurance premiums after a long phase of declining prices. The CEO of Assicurazioni Generali said that the strong price competition, which was not triggered by Generali, was coming to an end. He also predicted a price increase due to the slowing down of price competition with an improvement for the profitability of the sector. Importantly, the ICA viewed these statements as public announcements concerning the pricing competition strategies in the motor vehicle insurance sector, and more specifically about ...

In the Centre de Musique Amplifiées et ETIX LLC (CMA-Etix) case the Luxembourg Competition Authority (LCA) has recently closed an antitrust investigation into the market for the sale of tickets for cultural events with a non-infringement decision [1] . According to the complaint filed by an undisclosed person to the LCA, Centre de Musique Amplifiées (CMA), a non-profit entity, consistently entrusted to ETIX LLC (Etix), a-US based company active in the on-line ticketing service sector, the organization of cultural events at the Rockhal, a music hall complex owned by CMA. The complainant reported that Etix was the only distributor for such tickets and that in the case of the ‘Varekai’ show of the ‘Cirque du Soleil’ the ticket fees charged by Etix were excessive. The relevant product market was identified by the LCA in the market for the service for the distribution of the tickets for shows. The geographic dimension of that market coincided with the so-called Grande Région. The issu...

In a speech delivered at the Chilling’ Competition Conference, [1] held on 21 November 2016, the EU Competition Commissioner addressed the issue of the application of competition provisions to exploitative abuses. In what appeared to be an endorsement for a more active competition enforcement against this type of anti-competitive business practices, she said that, though the Commission does not intend to act as a price regulator, there can still be times when the regulatory intervention is needed. Amongst the fields where the Commission’s action to regulate excessive prices may be necessary is the pharmaceutical industry. Mrs Vestager also said that the best option to deal with unjustifiably high-priced drugs is sector-specific regulation. However, as illustrated by the Aspen [2] case decided by the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) and by Pfizer/Flynn Pharma [3] case decided by the UK’s Competition Market Authority (CMA), reliance on competition rules may sometimes be desirable...

By a judgement recently handed down in Ballan Automobili v VolkswagenGroup Italia (BA v VGI) , the Italian Supreme Court or Court of Cassation (the Court) has ruled that the plan for the reorganization of its Italian distribution network implemented by a German car manufacturer did not breach competition. The Court considered the reorganization plan as a legitimate business strategy, which did not restrain intra-brand competition. The applicant, Ballan Automobili (BA), was an authorized dealer of Audi cars in the region of Umbria. The respondent, Volkswagen Group Italia (VGI), was the Italian exclusive importer of all the cars manufactured by the Volkswagen group. VGI decided to reorganize the Italian distribution network of Audi cars, thereby reducing the number of car dealers previously admitted to the network. To that effect, BA was notified by VGI the termination of the distribution agreement previously entered into by BA with the exclusive importer. In 2007 BA sued VGI befor...