On 4 February 2021, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition held a discussion about how EU competition policy can contribute to the Commission’s sustainability goals, embodied in the European Green Deal. In that context, it discussed, amongst others, how to assess the compatibility of sustainability agreements with article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning … Continue Reading
Continuing our podcast series on price gouging laws, members of our global antitrust lawyers focus on the situation around price gouging (excessive pricing) in the EU, France, Germany and the UK in our latest instalment. The COVID-19 crisis has cast new light on excessive pricing practices in Europe, our team explains the impact the pandemic … Continue Reading
The European Commission is contemplating changes to its 23-year-old Market Definition Notice. To this end, on 26 June 2020, the Commission launched a public consultation on the relevance of the Notice. Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has said that the purpose of the consultation is to “adapt the Notice in the era of trade globalization and … Continue Reading
On 2 June 2020, the European Commission published an inception impact assessment regarding possible new tools to tackle structural competition issues arising on digital and non-digital markets. The Commission also published a separate inception impact assessment and open public consultation, requesting stakeholder contributions on how to address issues with large platforms acting as ‘gatekeepers’ to … Continue Reading
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy implemented further amendments to the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (Außenwirtschaftsverordnung – AWV) due to the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent the buyout of German companies active in the health care and infection protection sectors by investors from outside the EU (or EFTA). The amendment entered into … Continue Reading
By way of an EU regulation adopted by the Council and European Parliament, the European Commission, European Parliament, and Council of the European Union reached an agreement on February 14, 2019 to implement new rules designed to ensure a fair, transparent and predictable business environment to both end consumers and entrepreneurs using third party online … Continue Reading