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

Introduction On 23 June 2020, the German Federal Supreme Court (FSC) overturned the temporary injunction granted by the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf in August 2019, which suspended the German Federal Cartel Office’s (FCO’s) landmark abuse of dominance decision against Facebook, pending final determination of the company’s appeal (see our earlier blog post). In its February … Read more

The Indonesian Competition Commission (“KPPU”) has been scrutinizing several business sectors following the global economic slowdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. These sectors are primarily healthcare services, medical equipment, and essential commodities (food). One currently booming sector under watch by KPPU is healthcare. On April 14, KPPU issued a press release (Press Release … Read more

On 9 April 2020, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) fined 3 pharmaceutical companies for abuse of dominance in the distribution of injectable calcium gluconate Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API). The three companies were found to be in breach of the PRC’s Anti-Monopoly Law (the AML) between August 2015 and December 2017, by selling at … Read more