On November 24, 2021, the Paris Court of Appeals overruled the Paris Commercial Court’s dismissal of the follow-on damage claim brought by two supermarket chains in the dairy products case.[1] The Court of Appeals considered that the applicants had sufficiently substantiated the economic assessment of their harm. It also considered that they had only partially passed on the additional costs and therefore could claim damages for the costs that had not been passed on to consumers.
On November 22, 2021, the Regional Administrative Court of Latium (the “TAR Lazio”) rejected the application for annulment, lodged by the Italian Consortium for the Collection, Recycling and Recovery of Plastic Packaging (“COREPLA”), against the decision by which the ICA fined COREPLA in an amount in excess of €27 million, under Article 102 TFEU, for abusing its dominance in the Italian market for plastic waste recycling services (the “Decision”).[1]
On 19 November 2021, the CAT published a ruling on disclosure in the case of Ryder Limited and another v MAN SE and others, one of several actions being brought against truck manufacturers following the European Commission’s trucks cartel decision. Ryder sought disclosure of an unredacted extract from Iveco’s Statcom system (used to calculate the expected net profitability of each truck sold and to update its finance and accounting system).
On 18 November 2021, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) published summaries of three appeals by Mercury Pharmaceutical Limited, HG
On November 18, 2021, the Court of Justice clarified the framework for assessing anticompetitive agreements between a software developer and its distributors, and ordered a Latvian court to revisit its analysis before adjudicating on the case.[1]
On November 18, 2021, the Commission published its communication entitled “a competition policy fit for new challenges” (the “Communication”).[1] The Communication identifies several areas where an adjusted competition policy could help overcome new challenges the European economy is facing. In particular, the Communication discusses competition policy’s role in Europe’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, in supporting the European green[2] and digital transition,[3] and in strengthening the Single market’s resilience.
On November 16, 2021, the Italian Competition Authority (the “ICA” or the “Authority”) imposed a fine of €134.5 million 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”) for restricting certain resellers of Apple products, including those of the Apple-owned brand Beats, from accessing the online marketplace of Amazon (“Amazon Marketplace”).[1]
On November 10, 2021, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) issued a press release[1] indicating that it raided the premises of several companies in the food retail sector suspected of engaging in anticompetitive practices, as well as the homes of some employees.
Cleary Gottlieb partners Francisco Enrique González-Díaz and Daniel Culley, and associate Julia Blanco authored the chapter, “Negotiating the Remedy: A Practitioner’s Perspective.”
On November 10, 2021, the General Court upheld the Commission’s decision finding that Google had committed an abuse by favoring its own comparison shopping service (“CSS”).[1] The Commission previously found that Google positioned and displayed, in its general search results pages, its own CSS more prominently than competing CSSs. The Commission imposed on Google a fine of €2.42 billion.[2] In the judgment, the General Court largely dismissed Google’s appeal against the Commission’s decision and confirmed the amount of the fine.