On May 2, 2019, Advocate General Tanchev (“AG Tanchev”) recommended dismissing the Commission’s appeal against the General Court’s ruling in Icap.[1] According to AG Tanchev, the General Court was correct in holding that the Commission’s decision provided insufficient reasoning as regards the determination of the fines imposed on Icap.

In May 2019, the CMA obtained competition disqualification undertakings (“CDUs”) from three individuals for involvement in a cartel relating to…

On April 29, 2019, the Regional Administrative Tribunal of Latium (“TAR Lazio”) upheld[1] the appeals submitted by five radio taxi companies against infringement decisions issued by the ICA in the context of two parallel proceedings for alleged vertical restraints (“Decisions”).[2]

Following the Commission’s market test of Visa’s and Mastercard’s commitments offered on April 29, 2019, as reported in our December 2018 newsletter, the Commission accepted the companies’ commitments to cap their inter-regional multi-lateral interchange fees (“MIFs”).[1] The commitments put an end to the first publically reported probe into inter-regional MIFs by any antitrust authority worldwide, which was opened by the Commission in 2013.

On 17 April 2020, the CAT handed down its preliminary issue judgment on whether the defendant, Creative Scotland, constitutes an undertaking for the purposes of the Competition Act 1998. The issue arose in a claim by Strident Publishing Limited, a small independent book publisher, for an alleged abuse of dominance by Creative Scotland in breach of the Chapter 2 prohibition, by providing “investment finance” to publishers of literary works.

On April 17, 2019, the ICA found that 19 undertakings allegedly participated in a cartel that affected the outcome of the so-called “Facility Management 4” tender procedure, the biggest European public tender for the provision of cleaning and maintenance services for public offices ever to be launched in Italy (by Consip, the central purchasing agency owned by the Ministry for Economy and Finance).[1] The said tender was divided in 18 geographical lots and had a total value of approximately €2.7 billion.

On 17 April 2019, the High Court ruled on the extent to which factual findings of the General Court of the European Union are binding on claimants in follow-on damages actions before UK national courts. This case concerns damages claims against Servier, following the European Commission’s 2014 infringement decision, which found that Servier had abused a dominant position and entered ‘pay for delay’ agreements with rivals.

The French Competition Authority (the “FCA”) considered online and offline sales of toys as forming part of the same market in the context of its investigation of the merger of toy companies Luderix International and Jellej Jouets. The FCA thus relied once more on the methodology it applied in its Fnac/Darty merger clearance decision, when it concluded to the existence of a single market including both physical and online retail channels for the distribution of consumer electronics.