Industries

On January 27, 2020, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) accepted Lego’s commitments, thereby closing a five-year long investigation into the discount policy applied to distributors by the building games manufacturer.[1] Lego committed to redefine the criteria of its discount scheme to allow online distributors to obtain the same level of discount as brick-and-mortar distributors.

On January 24, 2020, the German Ministry for Economic Affairs published a draft proposal for the 10th Amendment to the German Act against Restraints of Competition (“Draft Proposal”). Its main objectives are (i) to enable and strengthen the protection of competition in digital markets, (ii) to make German competition law and its enforcement more efficient in general, and (iii) to implement the ECN+ Directive[1].

On January 21, 2020, the Council of State confirmed the annulment of a 2017 ICA decision sanctioning a cartel between manufacturers of reinforcing steel bars (rebars) and welded wire mesh.[1] In particular, the ICA fined eight companies (namely, Feralpi Siderurgica S.p.A., Ori Martin Acciaieria e Ferriera di Brescia S.p.A., Industrie Riunite Odolesi I.R.O. S.p.A., Riva Acciaio S.p.A., Ferriere Nord S.p.A. and Fin. Fer S.p.A., Stefana S.p.A., Ferriera Valsabbia S.p.A. and Alfa Acciai S.p.A., together the “Manufacturers”) in an amount in excess of €140 million for allegedly coordinating their commercial strategies between 2010 and 2016, by fixing prices and exchanging sensitive information (among other things through the trade association Nuovo Campsider, “NC”).[2] The Council of State, fully upholding the TAR Lazio’s reasoning at first instance,[3] held that the appeal lodged by the ICA was unfounded on two fronts.

In January 2020, the FCA published its study on behavioral remedies in merger control and anticompetitive practices.[1] The study takes stock of the FCA’s decisional practice on behavioral remedies and provides material for broader discussion amongst competition law practitioners and academics.

On January 16, 2020, the FCA dismissed a complaint by French terrestrial digital television broadcaster towerCast which alleged that its competitor TDF’s acquisition of Itas,[1] constituted an abuse of dominance on the wholesale markets for digital terrestrial television broadcasting services (the “Decision”).

On January 16, 2020, the TAR Lazio[1] accepted the application filed by Società Iniziative Editoriali S.p.A. (hereinafter “SIE”), a company active in the daily newspaper market and publisher of the main daily newspaper in the area of Trento (L’Adige), for annulment of an ICA decision finding SIE to have abused its dominant position on the said market by refusing to license the editorial contents of its newspaper to companies providing daily press reviews in the area of Trento.

On January 13, 2020, the Council of State upheld the appeals lodged by E.S.TR.A. S.p.A. and its subsidiary E.S.TR.A. Reti Gas S.r.l. (together, “E.S.TR.A.”),[1] and annulled the 2012 decision in which the ICA had fined E.S.TR.A. for abusing its dominant position in a local market for gas distribution, in a case raising novel and complex issues.

On January 10, 2020, the Council of State rejected the appeals brought against two judgments issued by the TAR Lazio in 2016, which upheld an ICA decision finding an anticompetitive bid rigging agreement in the railway transportation sector.[1] In particular, in 2015 the ICA found that 12 companies active in the railway industry had secretly colluded with a view systematically to allocating public procurement contracts covering the whole national territory, as well as by agreeing on their respective bids.[2]