On January 12, 2022, former European Central Bank official Benoît Coeuré was appointed President of the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) following his hearing by both houses of the French Parliament.[1] He was unanimously appointed by members of the Commission for Economic Affairs of the Assemblée Nationale, while the Commission for Economic Affairs of the Sénat displayed a more balanced distribution of votes (only 12 in favor out of 22 votes cast).
On January 4, 2022, the Cour de cassation confirmed the rulings of the president of the Court of Appeals validating dawn raids carried out in May 2017 by the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) in the rendering sector.[1]
On December 28, 2021, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) dismissed a claim brought against Samsung by one of its authorized distributors regarding alleged anticompetitive agreements in the sale of consumer electronics.[1]
On December 22, 2021, the German Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) published its annual review for 2021.[1] As done already on the occasion of the presentation of its Annual Report 2020/2021,[2] the FCO’s President, Andreas Mundt, emphasized again that the protection of competition in the digital economy remains one of the FCO’s top priorities. He underlined that also merger control will continue to serve as a key tool to achieve this goal. In addition, he pointed out that the FCO would welcome powers of intervention also with regard to infringements of consumer rights.
The UK Government has stated that the review of mergers in the UK “should be as efficient as possible, focusing its attention on mergers most likely to be harmful to competition and consumers, without unduly hindering benign investment.”[1] To that end, the UK has a voluntary, non-suspensive system of merger control, intended to promote greater flexibility and proportionality than a suspensory regime.
In a press release dated December 15, 2021, the French Competition Authority (the “FCA”) announced the opening of a public consultation on Google’s proposed commitments in the “related rights” case. These commitments seek to address the preliminary competition concerns expressed by the FCA Investigation Services, who are still pursuing the proceedings on the merits following an interim measures decision issued in April 2020.
The area of standards, and licensing of Standard Essential Patents (“SEPs”) on “fair reasonable and non-discriminatory terms (“FRAND”) is alive as ever. There are developments in three jurisdictions:
On December 9, 2021, following ex officio proceedings,[1] the German Cartel Office (“FCO”) concluded that the acquisition of customer relationship management software provider Kustomer, Inc., (“Kustomer”) by Facebook Inc., re-named Meta Platforms Inc. (“Meta”) since October 2021, is notifiable under the German merger control regime as it falls under the € 400 million transaction value threshold of the ARC[2] and asked Meta to submit documents to review the transaction.[3] On January 11, 2022, the parties notified the transaction to the FCO.