Industries

On March 5, 2019, the French Competition Authority celebrated its 10 years of existence. The President of the Competition Authority listed her priorities for the coming years, which include the retail sector and purchasing alliances, digital economy, “predatory” acquisitions and reflection on ex post control, as well as the labour market and labour collective agreements.

In a decision issued on February 28, 2019, the FCA authorized, subject to conditions, the acquisition of the Marie Brizard Group by Compagnie Financière Européenne de Prises de Participation (Cofepp).[1] Marie Brizard and Cofepp’s businesses overlap on the wine and spirits market. After having ruled out any risk of harm to competition on the on-trade channel (cafés, hotels, restaurants, etc.), the FCA examined the effects of the transaction on the mass retail channel.

On February 26, 2019, the FCO approved RWE AG’s (“RWE”) acquisition of a minority stake of 16.67% in E.ON SE (“E.ON”).[1] The acquisition is part of a complex share and asset swap deal between the two energy companies. Following the share and asset swap, E.ON will focus on the distribution and retail of electricity and gas, whereas RWE will be primarily active in upstream electricity generation and wholesale markets.

On February 25, 2019, the FCO concluded its abuse of dominance investigation against the German National Olympic Committee (Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund, “DOSB”) and the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”) with a commitment decision.[1] The FCO had launched its investigation in 2017, following a complaint by the German Association of the Sporting Goods Industry (Bundesverband der Sportartikel-Industrie).

On July 2, 2014, the Commission conditionally cleared Telefónica Deutschland’s acquisition of E-plus, KPN’s German mobile telecommunications business, which combined the third and fourth largest mobile network operators in Germany. The acquisition was characterized as a 4-to-3 merger resulting in three mobile operators of a similar size.[1]

On 15 February 2019, the Court of Appeal dismissed Balmoral Tanks’ (Balmoral) appeal against the October 2017 CAT judgment upholding the CMA’s decision to fine Balmoral £130,000 for exchanging pricing information with three other suppliers of galvanised steel tanks at a single meeting in July 2012. Although Balmoral refused to join the cartel operated by the three other suppliers, its CEO nonetheless remained at the meeting and shared information about Balmoral’s current and future pricing intentions.

On 14 February 2019, the CAT rejected Mastercard’s attempts to use the evolution of the limitation period for damages claims in the CAT to exclude historic losses. The relevant claims were brought by Dixons and Europcar in reliance on the EC’s December 2007 decision against Mastercard.[1] The EC found that Mastercard had infringed Article 101 TFEU between 22 May 1992 and 19 December 2007 through its use of multi-lateral interchange fees for cross-border transactions made using Mastercard credit and debit cards.

On February 14, 2019, the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) found in SA-Capital Oy v. Finland, that the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court had not violated SA-Capital’s right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights by partially relying on hearsay evidence in finding the existence and the scope of a cartel.[1] In particular, given the evidentiary complexity of cartel infringements, the ECtHR concluded that national competition authorities may use hearsay to the extent their findings do not solely depend on it.[2]

On February 14, 2019, the Commission published a decision, adopted on December 7, 2018,[1] accepting commitments offered by TenneT, an electricity transmission system operator (“TSO”), to remove restrictions on, and in the long term also to increase, the maximum capacity of the electricity interconnector between Germany and West Denmark (“the DE-DK1 interconnector”).