On May 9, 2022, the Council of State delivered three judgments in annulment proceedings brought by the addressees of a 2019 ICA decision, which found 19 companies liable for participating in a cartel aimed at rigging a tender procedure in the facility maintenance sector in Italy (the “Decision”).[1]
Updated on May 10, 2022
The UK Government has published its response to the consultation on a new regulatory regime for digital markets on May 6, 2022.
The Italian Competition Authority (the “ICA”) fined ferry operator Caronte & Tourist (“C&T”) €3.7 million for having charged excessive prices on a ferry transportation route between Sicily and Calabria between 2017 and 2019 (the “Decision”).
On April 28, 2022, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) unconditionally cleared the acquisition of home furnishing retailer Conforama
On April 27, 2022, the European Commission (the “Commission”) approved a State aid scheme of €700 million of the French State “to support research, development and innovation projects by companies of all sizes and active across all sectors”[1] (the “French Scheme” or the “Scheme”). The French authorities estimate the number of beneficiaries of the scheme to range between 11 and 50 companies.[2] The scheme will be in place until December 31, 2023.
On April 26, 2022, the Italian Supreme Court confirmed a judgment of the Milan Court of Appeal, which had upheld the damages claim brought by Teleunit S.p.A. (“Teleunit”) against Telecom Italia S.p.A. (“Tim”)[1].
The EU’s historic Digital Markets Act will bring about a paradigm shift in the regulation of digital markets, giving the
On April 20, 2022, the Cour de cassation, the French Supreme Court, upheld the judgment of the First President of the Paris Court of Appeal validating dawn raids carried out by the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) in the wine and spirits sector in 2019. The Cour de cassation held that the scope of the French legal professional privilege (“LPP”) (secret professionnel) is not limited to attorney-client correspondence relating to conduct in the scope of the proceedings at stake but to any and all proceedings, even unrelated to competition law, where any outside lawyer is representing his or her client’s rights of defense.[1]
Antitrust enforcement in labor markets has become a focus of the U.S. antitrust regulators in recent years, with particular scrutiny on agreements between employers not to recruit or solicit each other’s employees—so-called “no poach” agreements. In a recent decision, a court in China held no‑poach and employee compensation-fixing agreements to be illegal, the first such court decision in the country. The court’s decision, however, reveals the difficulties in analyzing no-poach agreements within China’s existing antitrust regime and analytical framework. This article provides an overview of the Chinese court’s reasoning in its recent decision and a comparative assessment to the approach in the United States.
On April 12, 2022, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) fined Compagnie Financière Européenne de Prises de Participation (“COFEPP”) 7 million euros for two distinct but related infringements, namely failing to notify a merger transaction (failure to notify) and implementing said transaction before merger control approval had been obtained (so-called “gun-jumping”).