On July 14, 2022, the Commission invited comments on Amazon’s proposed commitments, offered under Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003, in two investigations concerning practices that allegedly advantaged its own services on its online marketplace, contrary to Article 102 TFEU. The invitation for comments is open until September 9, 2022.
On July 12, 2022, the Commission fined metal packaging producers Crown and Silgan €31.5m for breaching Article 101 TFEU by exchanging sensitive information and coordinating their commercial strategies for the sale of metal cans and closures in Germany over a three-year period.[1] The products concerned were metal lids for glass jars, coated with lacquers containing bisphenol A (“BPA”) or BPA-free lacquers and metal cans coated with BPA-free lacquers. These products were predominantly used to package foods, such as vegetables, fruit, meat, and fish.
On July 7, 2022, Advocate General Rantos delivered his Opinion in Lietuvos geležinkeliai v Commission, Lithuanian Railways’ appeal against a General Court judgment partially upholding a decision by the Commission finding that it had infringed Article 102 TFEU by removing 19 km of train tracks.[1] The Commission concluded that this conduct prevented a major customer from switching to Latvian Railways’ rival transportation services.
On July 6, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) published its annual report for the year 2021.[1] In particular, the report highlights (i) the key figures of the FCA activity in 2021, (ii) the reinforced investigative powers of the FCA and (iii) the roadmap for 2022-2023.
On July 6, 2022, the European Commission launched a public consultation on its proposal to extend the Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation (“MVBER”), which has been in force since 2010 and is set to expire in May 2023.
On July 1, 2022, the Conseil d’Etat (the French administrative supreme court) ruled[1] that it had no jurisdiction to annul a decision of the French Competition Authority (the “FCA”) rejecting commitments offered by the group Sony (“Sony”) to end competition proceedings and referring the case back for further investigation.[2]
In her second term as EU Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager’s focus to date has been on securing approval for the
On June 21, 2022, the Italian Competition Authority (the “ICA”) closed its investigation pursuant to Article 102 TFEU into the conduct of the incumbent providers of the local public transport service by road in the Tuscany Region (the “Region”), which jointly formed the ONE Scarl consortium (“ONE”).
On June 20, 2022, the Commission opened a formal investigation into Vifor Pharma for the possible anticompetitive disparagement of a rival’s iron medicine.[1] Although the Commission launched a disparagement investigation last year,[2] this is the first time that it opens an investigation based exclusively on a disparagement theory of harm, and in relation to two originator products at that.[3]
On June 16, 2022, the Paris Court of Appeals (the “Court”) ruled that “decisions to protect the confidentiality of business secrets taken during the course of the investigation, which have not been challenged pursuant to Article R. 463-15 of the French Commercial Code, continue to bind the College when adopting and drafting the decision on the merits, otherwise such decisions would be deprived of any effectiveness” (the “Ruling”).[1]