“When the price of a drug suddenly goes up by several hundred percent, this is something the Commission may look at” Commissioner Vestager said when opening a formal investigation into Aspen’s alleged excessive pricing conduct in May 2017.  On 10 February 2021, the EU Commission (Commission) closed the investigation by accepting legally binding commitments offered … Read more

On 26 January 2021 the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) published a notice of a standalone competition damages claim (brought under section 47A of the Competition Act 1998) by Kerilee Investments, a metal trader, against the International Tin Association, a UK based trade association.  The claimant alleges that the trade association abused its dominant position and … Read more

The German FCO has not lost its appetite to take on major tech companies. Today, it has announced that it has initiated abuse proceedings against Facebook to examine the linkage between Oculus virtual reality products and Facebooks’ social network. Read more

On 24 November 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down a decision on the applicability of Article 7(2) of Regulation No 1215/2012 (the Brussels Ia Reg) to competition law disputes in a preliminary reference relating to an action by German hotel Wikingerhof GmbH & Co. KG (Wikingerhof) against Booking.com BV … Read more

On 10 November 2020, the European Commission (the Commission) announced that it had issued a Statement of Objections to Amazon in its investigation into Amazon’s use of non-public data of sellers gathered from its marketplace platform to the benefit of its competing retail businesses. Simultaneously, the Commission launched a second formal investigation into Amazon’s possible … Read more

The Regional Court of Mannheim delivered its judgment in a much noticed patent infringement case in Germany. The dispute is noteworthy not only because of its economic importance but in particular also because the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) filed an amicus curiae brief in the dispute, which rarely ever happens, and suggested that the … Read more

In an earlier blog post we discussed the ‘evaluation and fitness check roadmap’ conducted by the European Commission (Commission) in relation to its 1997 Notice on the definition of relevant markets (Notice). In light of the initial feedback received by the Commission, on 26 June 2020 it published a ‘public consultation for the 2020 Evaluation … Read more

The automotive industry is unquestionably evolving at considerable pace, whether through advances in connectivity and autonomy in vehicles, developments in the way that consumers access and use vehicles or changes driven by the “electric revolution” and the unprecedented industry disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. In the latest article in a series entitled “Views on … Read more