competitionlaw

A table summarizing the decisions made by the European Commission concerning financle aid granted to airports since the adoption of the 2014 Aviation Guidelines is available at this link .  

By a decision made on 11 May 2020 the Italian Competition Authority has opened a II-Phase investigation into the proposed acquisition of UBI Banca (UBI) by Intesa SanPaolo (ISP) affecting several banking and financial markets ( Case C-12287, Intesa SanPaolo/UBI Banca) .  Alongside with Unicredit, ISP is one of the major banking players in Italy while the target UBI is a mid-size banking group. In February 2020 ISP launched a conditional public bid on the shares of UBI. On the same time ISP entered into a legally binding contract with another banking group, BPER, for the sale of about 400/500 branches of UBI. Because this contract shall be implemented within a reasonably short deadline, ISP does gains control of these assets. Notwithstanding that, while vetting the merger the ICA will also consider such branches because the precise scope of the divestment contract is uncertain. The ICA has concerns that the consummation of the merger might restrain competition in several ...

In the Conad/Auchan merger case , the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) conditionally approved the acquisition of the seventh largest grocery retailer, Auchan, by the largest Italian supermarket chain, Conad. By the proposed acquisition, Conad will acquire 291 points of sale of different size and format owned by Auchan in Italy. Relying on the collective market shares of the merging parties combined with the measures of diversion ratio and GUPPI (Gross Upward Pricing Pressure Indicator), the ICA identified 33 problematic local markets for retailing of food products and non-food products. The theory of competition harm employed by the ICA is that the implementation of the merger would bring about unilateral anti-competitive effects. To address these competition problems, Conad and the ICA agreed on the structural remedy of divestment of 29 outlets by an undisclosed deadline.   The conditional clearance decision in Conad/Auchan is consistent with the latest decisional pract...

In the Ordre des architects et des ingénieurs-conseils et Monsieur Carlo Frank case the Luxembourg Competition Authority (LCA) considered whether the Luxembourgish Association of Architects and Engineers (OAI) and a member of it put in place an anti-competitive price-fixing agreement. In June 2018 a customer of a Luxembourg-architect and member of the OAI, CF, filed a complaint with the LCA, reporting that CF invoiced him fees for professional services determined on the basis of the fee scale recommended by the OAI (the Fee Scale). That, in the view of the complainant, gave raise to two competition breaches: i) Non-compliance with the LCA’s commitment decision of 5 February 2014 by which the OAI committed to refrain from issuing recommended Fee Scale to be incorporated by its members into the service contracts concluded with their clients as basis to determine the fees to be paid by the clients. ii) A concerted practice by which the OAI and its members jointly determined the ...

Introduction Article 106 of the Italian Code of Financial Markets lays down the mandatory offer rule whereby a person that acquires a shareholding in excess of 30 percent of the share capital of a joint-stock company must make an offer for all the shares within the following 30 days. In case of violation of the mandatory offer rule, Article 110 CFM provides that all the voting rights of the infringer are suspended. The Court of Cassation in its recent judgment issued in the case no. 26793/2019 L v Consob dealt with the scope of application of Articles 106 and 110 CFM, giving guidance on which circumstances an infringement of the mandatory offer rule can be established. Facts of the case By the decision made on 16 April 2009, case no. 26793/2019, L v Consob , Consob, the Italian financial regulator, levied a fine on CL for violating Articles 106 and 110 CFM. CL purchased a shareholding in excess of 30% of Lazio Spa, a quoted company and also a football club playing in the Ital...

In the case I835 the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an antitrust investigation against the main four suppliers of water meters in Italy following the receipt of a complaint. The ICA took the view that the firms under investigation might have put in place a cartel to allocate amongst themselves the public contracts for the supply of water meters tendered out by the utilities entrusted with the provision of the integrated water services. The ICA observed that over the past 5 years the parties made the winning bids in the majority of the competitive tender procedures organized by the contracting authorities. And on the grounds of the facts and evidence collected in its preliminary investigation, the ICA believed that the parties coordinated their participation in the tender procedures for the supply of water meters. Interestingly, the parties coordinated their conducts through communication via the Skype and WhatsApp apps. In light of the above, the ICA made the pre...

Once again, the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an Article 102 TFEU investigation against a pharma firm into an alleged excessive pricing. This time, in Leadiant (Case A524, LeadiantBiosciences/Farmaco per la cura della Xanatosi Cerebrotendinea ), the ICA focused on the pricing of an orphan generics drug, Chenodeoxycholic Acid Leadiant (CAL). This drug, which contains the active principle of chenodeoxycholic acid (CDCA), is produced by Leadiant Biosciences Ltd (LB) and used for the treatment of a very rare disease, CTX. In June 2017 LB applied to the Italian drug authority (AIFA) for a market authorization (MA) for the CAL. The procedure is still to be finalized because no agreement was reached as to the selling price of the drug. The price indicated by LB was considered too high by AIFA and then LB asked for the suspension of the negotiation. The ICA opened the antitrust investigation against LB following the receipt of a complaint filed by a consumer association. ...