On November 28, 2019, the Court of Justice partially granted the appeal brought by ABB and annulled a part of the Commission’s Power Cables decision.[1] In particular, the Court of Justice upheld ABB’s argument that the Commission did not adduce sufficient evidence that the cartel extended to accessories for power cables with voltages between 110 kV and 220 kV. The Court of Justice criticized the General Court for using a wrong evidentiary standard in reviewing the Commission’s decision.

On November 14, 2019, the Court of Justice dismissed an appeal brought by Silec Cable.[1] In particular, the Court rejected Silec’s claims that the General Court had (i) incorrectly interpreted the content of its email communications as evidencing its involvement in the cartel; (ii) erroneously applied the legal test of public distancing from the cartel (i.e., Silec was not required to distance itself as it did not participate in any meetings); and (iii) wrongly denied them a ‘fringe player’ status, compared to another cartel participant, refusing to grant a fine reduction on this basis.

On November 14, 2019, the Paris Court of Appeals annulled a decision of the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) which, for the first time since the 2011 Fining Guidelines, had fined a company for abusing its dominant position through excessive pricing.[1] The Court set the conditions for finding exploitative abuses and held that the FCA had failed to show that Sanicorse’s price increases were “objectively unfair”.

On 13 November 2019, the High Court upheld a judicial review challenge to Ofgem’s decision on the implementation of a tariff cap and the calculation of the wholesale energy cost allowance for the first period of the price cap (Q1 2019). The CMA investigated the energy supply market in June 2016 and concluded that there was ineffective competition in the energy supply market, which had resulted in higher default tariffs being charged to customers.

On November 12, 2019, the ICA issued a decision finding that Coopservice S.Coop.p.A. (“Coopservice”), Allsystem S.p.A. (“Allsystem”), Istituti di Vigilanza Riuniti S.p.A. (“IVRI”) and its parent companies Skibs S.r.l. (“Skibs”) and Gruppo Biks S.p.A. (“Biks”), Italpol Vigilanza S.r.l. (“Italpol”) and its parent company MC Holding S.r.l. (“MC Holding”), Sicuritalia S.p.A. (“Sicuritalia”) and its parent company Lomafin SGH S.p.A. (“Lomafin”) participated in a cartel affecting the outcome of several open tender procedures for the provision of private security services, launched by contracting authorities located in the regions of Lombardia, Emilia Romagna and Lazio between 2013 and 2017.[1]

On November 11, 2019, the FCO approved the acquisition of Acacia Communications, Inc. (“Acacia”) by Cisco Systems, Inc. (“Cisco”).[1] The FCO had asked the merging parties to withdraw their notification to have more time to define the relevant markets but cleared the transaction in phase 1 after the parties had resubmitted their notification one month later.

On November 7, 2019, the General Court dismissed an appeal brought by Campine against an €8.16 million fine imposed by the Commission for its participation in the battery recycling purchasing cartel.[1] Campine sought annulment of the fine, and challenged in particular the 10% increase in the fine that the Commission imposed on account of it being a purchasing cartel.

On November 7, 2019, the Conseil d’Etat upheld the FCA decision imposing a €20 million fine on Fnac Darty for failing to comply with the commitment to divest three stores, pre-condition for clearance in the acquisition of Darty by Fnac in 2016.[1]