As part of our response to the European Commission’s consultation on possible reforms to its merger control guidelines,[1] we provided our views on Topic Paper E – Digitalization.

On July 10, 2025, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) published both its 2024 Annual Report,[1] and its 2025-2026 Roadmap,[2] which outlines its priorities for the year ahead. 

In July 2025, the European Commission launched a consultation about its revision of the EU antitrust procedural rules.[1] This is part of a comprehensive evaluation that the Commission initiated in March 2022, to ensure that the procedural framework for the EU’s antitrust enforcement remains “fit for the digital age” after its enactment 20 years ago.[2]

As part of our response to the European Commission’s consultation on possible reforms to its merger control guidelines,[1] we provided our views on Topic Paper D – on Sustainability and Clean Technologies.

In the past year, the General Court has ruled on several challenges to Commission dawn raids initiated against Symrise,[1] Michelin,[2] and Red Bull,[3] clarifying the limits of the Commission’s investigatory powers. In all three cases, the General Court upheld the legality of the inspections,[4] though refined the evidentiary and procedural standards governing dawn raids.[5] The most recent Michelin and Red Bull judgments, in particular: (i) clarified what constitutes “sufficient indicia” for the Commission to initiate a dawn raid; (ii) validated the Commission’s use of new digital tools to gather indicia for dawn raids and its practice of gathering information onsite and later reviewing that information over extended periods of time at the Commission’s premises (“extended inspection”); and (iii) confirmed the Commission’s margin of discretion in selecting the most appropriate investigative measure—such as dawn raids or requests for information—in antitrust investigations.

As part of our response to the European Commission’s consultation on possible reforms to its merger control guidelines,[1] we provided our views on Topic C – Innovation And Other Dynamic Elements In Merger Control.

In the latest instalment of Cleary Gottlieb’s Antitrust Review podcast, host Nick Levy is joined by Teresa Ribera, the European Commission’s Executive Vice-President for a Clean, Just, and Competitive Transition. Their conversation, held in front of a live audience in New York at the Fordham Corporate Law Institute’s 52nd Annual Conference on International Antitrust Law and Policy, covers an array of topics, including the objectives of antitrust, sustainability, EU merger control, the Draghi Report, digital regulation, international cooperation, and much more.

On October 1, 2025, the General Court dismissed Laudamotion’s application for annulment of the European Commission’s (“Commission”) decision rejecting a complaint that Lufthansa’s concurrent acquisition of flight slots previously held by Air Berlin and conclusion of a wet lease agreement for 40 Air Berlin aircrafts constituted an anticompetitive concertation in breach of Article 101 TFEU.[1] The General Court reconfirmed that to sustain an infringement finding, there can be no alternative plausible explanation for the alleged anticompetitive concertation.