competitionlaw

By the decision delivered in Full-Scale CCS Project (decision of 17 July 2020 no. 85378), the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) approved investment aid and operating aid granted by Norway to Norcem AS (Norcem), Fortnum Oslo Varme AS (FOV) and Northern Lights (NL) for the construction and operation of a full-scale project for the capture, transport and storage of CO₂ ( the CCS Project ). The legal basis on which the ESA cleared the notified financing measures of the CCS Project was Article 61(3) of the EEA Agreement. These measures were found to be compatible with the functioning of the EEA Agreement given that they met the relevant compatibility conditions in the European Environmental Aid Guidelines (EEAG). The facts of the case On 2 July 2020 Norway notified investment aid and operating aid to finance the implementation of the CCS Project over a period of 10 years. The publicly-funded CCS Project consists of three elements: a number of CO₂ capture plants ( the Capture Projects ...

The first post of 2021 is about the decision handed down by the Luxembourg Competition Authority (LCA) in the LNS case (no. 2020-NC-06, LaboratoireNational de Santé ). In this case the LCA examined and rejected an application for interim relief against allegedly anticompetitive practices concerning Covid-19 testing in the middle of the pandemics. The proceedings commenced on 14 September 2020 when Bionext, a privately-held medical laboratory, filed a complaint with the LCA. By the complaint Bionext reported a number of practices put in place by a competing public undertaking, Laboratoire National de Santé (LNS), which appeared to breach Article 102 TFEU and the corresponding national competition rules. More specifically, Bionext pointed to the decision of the Luxembourg authorities to confer on LNS a legal monopoly on some Covid-19 testing methods: the PCR tests for hospitals and serological tests to be executed in the context of the government-backed massive screening campaign. Foll...