Cleary Gottlieb

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In six judgments dated June 30 to July 1, 2021,[1] the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (the “TAR Lazio”) set aside an infringement decision issued by the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) against eleven Italian banks[2] and the Italian Banking Association (the “ABI”). The ICA decision concerned an alleged anticompetitive agreement aimed at coordinating business strategies in order to determine the remuneration model for the Sepa Compliant Electronic Database Alignment (“SEDA”) service.[3]

On September 24, 2019, the General Court annulled a €33.6 million fine imposed by the Commission on HSBC for its participation in the Euro Interest Rate Derivatives (“EIRD”) cartel.[1] The General Court upheld the infringement finding, but annulled the fine because the Commission had failed to sufficiently explain its fine calculation methodology, as previously reported.[2]

On June 24, 2021,[1] the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) issued a decision closing ten years of investigation for alleged retail price maintenance (“RPM”) practices by Kärcher and dismissed the case. This is one of the rare instances where the Collège has dismissed a case for lack of evidence after objections were notified to the party.

On June 23, 2021, the German Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) published its Annual Report 2020/2021[1] as well as its biennial Activity Report 2019/2020. Andreas Mundt, the President of the FCO, pointed out that the FCO’s enforcement activities continue to focus on the digital economy and consumer protection—especially with the help of the FCO’s new enforcement tools created by the recently introduced 10th Amendment of the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (“ARC”)[2]. The reports also provides various enforcement statistics that show that the FCO continues to be a highly active competition law enforcer in the EU.[3]

On 17 June 2021, the CMA published a consultation document on its provisional recommendation to replace the retained EU Vertical Agreements Block Exemption Regulation (VABER) with a UK-specific Vertical Agreements Block Exemption Order (VABEO) (the CMA Consultation). Currently, agreements benefit from automatic exemption from the UK Chapter 1 Prohibition[1] (the equivalent of Article 101 TFEU) if they meet the criteria set out in the VABER.

On June 15, 2021, the Italian Competition Authority (the “ICA”) adopted a decision that made legally binding the commitments offered by certain companies active in the scrap lead-acid batteries sector, in the context of an investigation regarding the alleged coordination of their pricing behavior.[1] These commitments were found to adequately address the ICA’s concern that the companies and the collecting organizations they belonged to may have coordinated their behavior in violation of Article 101 TFEU.

On June 11, 2021, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) published a draft to update its Notice on fines.[1] The draft is subject to a public consultation which was held between June 11 and 25, 2021. According to the FCA, the update was prompted by the entry into force of ordinance No.2021-649 of May 26, 2021, which implements Directive (EU) 2019/1 of the European Parliament and of the Council of December 11, 2018 (“ECN+ Directive”), whose aim is to strengthen and harmonize competition enforcement by national authorities.

On June 11, 2021, the FCO cleared Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA’s (“RTL Group”) acquisition of the remaining 50% shares in RTL Disney Fernsehen GmbH & Co. KG (“Super RTL”) from its co-shareholder The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”).[1] RTL Group and Disney established Super RTL as a joint venture in 1995, each holding 50 percent of the shares in Super RTL. Following the transaction, RTL Group is the sole shareholder of Super RTL.