The following post was originally included as part of our recently published memorandum “Selected Issues for Boards of Directors in 2024”.
Antitrust in 2023 was marked by a series of policy developments—some still nascent, some ripe for enforcement for the first time. In the U.S., the FTC and DOJ finalized their drastically transformed merger guidelines. In the EU, landmark new digital regulations became applicable for the first time. And the UK government introduced a bill promising major new digital and consumer protection rules.
In a unanimous judgment, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales (CoA) reaffirmed the Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) power to require overseas companies with no branches in the UK to produce documents and information when investigating suspected anticompetitive conduct. The CoA considered that not allowing the CMA to obtain information from overseas companies would create a “gaping lacuna” in the CMA’s ability to perform its statutory duties.
In the latest episode of Cleary Gottlieb’s Antitrust Review podcast, host Nick Levy interviews members of Cleary Gottlieb’s award-winning antitrust practice about the principal developments in 2023 and their predictions for antitrust enforcement in 2024.
On 14 December 2023, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published its first horizon scanning report examining ten trends in digital markets that the CMA expects will be relevant over the next five years and beyond.
The report aims to “draw on available evidence to discuss and present possible future developments and potential implications for competition and consumers”.[1] The trends focus on areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), interoperability, and privacy.
In a 350-page decision dated December 29, 2023, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) sanctioned four professional associations and eleven undertakings, in their capacity as members of these associations, for having implemented a collective strategy to prevent market players from competing on the presence or absence of Bisphenol A (“BPA”) in food containers (the “Decision”). [1] The total fine amounts to €19,543,400.
On December 21, 2023, the Grand Chamber of the CJEU delivered a judgment on the interplay between public procurement rules and competition law.[1] The judgment replies to questions raised on a preliminary reference by the Portuguese Supreme Administrative Court on the interpretation of Article 57(4) of the Public Procurement Directive (“PPD”),[2] which states that tendering authorities may exclude from participation in a procurement procedure any economic operator involved in anticompetitive behaviour. The judgment provides the following clarifications:
On December 21, 2023, the Paris Court of Appeal (the “Court”) upheld the French Competition Authority’s (“FCA”) decision to jointly and severally fine Mayotte Channel Gateway (“MCG”) as the author of the infringement, and Société Nel Import Export (“SNIE”) as its parent company, for obstructing the investigation by willfully and repeatedly failing to respond to an information request (the “Decision”).[1]
On December 21, 2023, the Court of Justice of the EU (“CJEU”) delivered two of the most anticipated judgments of
On December 20, 2023, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) fined Sony EUR 13.5 million for allegations of abuse of dominant position in the supply of video game controllers for its PlayStation 4 (“PS4”) console between November 2015 and April 2020.[1]