On October 20, 2022, Advocate General Kokott issued her opinion on the Commission’s appeal of the General Court’s landmark May 2020 judgment overturning the Commission’s prohibition of the Three/O2 UK mobile telecommunications merger.[1] The Opinion advises the Court of Justice to uphold the Commission’s appeal on all main grounds and refer the case back to the General Court for reconsideration.
On October 19, 2022, the Cour de cassation dismissed[1] an appeal brought by Carrefour against two decisions of the Paris Court of Appeals, which rejected its follow-on damage claim against Johnson & Johnson Santé Beauté France (“Johnson & Johnson”) in relation to its participation to the home and personal care cartel.[2]
On October 12, 2022, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union. This is the last step in the almost two-year long journey since the publication of the Commission’s initial proposal in December 2020.[1]
On October 13, 2022, Advocate General Kokott delivered her opinion on a preliminary reference from the Paris Court of Appeal in the Towercast case, stating that transactions that escape EU and national merger control review are susceptible to review under Article 102 TFEU.[1]
On October 11, 2022, the ICA closed an Article 102 TFEU investigation into Mastercard Europe SA (“Mastercard”)’s conduct by accepting the commitments offered by Mastercard relating to its double-tap mandate for contactless payments with co-badged payment cards (i.e., cards that can be used on more than one payment network) (the “Decision”),[1] which precluded retailers operating point-of-sale (“POS”) terminals from accepting single-tap payments from co-badged cards.
On October 10, 2022, the Commission sent a Statement of Objections (“SO”) to Teva, maintaining that the company abused its alleged dominant position through patent misuse and disparagement practices.[1]
In the fourth episode of Cleary Gottlieb’s Antitrust Review podcast, host Nick Levy interviews Professor Eleanor M. Fox, who for
On October 6, 2022, the French Competition Authority (the “FCA”) imposed a €81 million fine on Essilor International SAS (“Essilor”) for having engaged in discriminatory trading practices aimed at hindering the development of e-commerce for optical lenses in France between April 2009 and December 2020.[1] Essilor’s parent company, EssilorLuxottica, was fined €15.4 million jointly and severally with its subsidiary and announced its intention to appeal the decision.[2]
On October 3, 2022, the Commission adopted a Revised Informal Guidance Notice on the application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU to novel or unresolved competition law questions.[1] The Revised Informal Guidance Notice gives the Commission more flexibility in issuing informal advice compared to the 2004 guidance.[2]
On October 3, 2022, the Regional Administrative Court for Latium (the “TAR Lazio”) annulled the decision of the Italian Competition Authority (the “ICA”) of November 16, 2021 (the “ICA Decision”),[1] by which a fine of €134.5 million was imposed on Apple Inc. and certain of its subsidiaries (“Apple”) and a fine of €68.7 million on Amazon.com Inc. and certain of its subsidiaries (“Amazon”; together with Apple, the “Parties”).[2] The ICA Decision had found that the Parties infringed Article 101(1) (b) and (d) TFEU by restricting competition by certain resellers of Apple products, including those of the Apple-owned brand Beats, which operated on the online marketplace of Amazon (the “Amazon Marketplace”). The ICA found Amazon Marketplace to be a leading online marketplace in Italy, for consumer electronics products.[3]