Connected Cars And Autonomous Driving - EU Antitrust Challenges (Part I)

In Short

The Background: The automotive industry has achieved a number of technological advances aimed at developing connected cars, automated vehicles, and ultimately autonomous driving. These innovations are expected to pose a series of legal challenges. Among the different fields of law concerned, competition law will play a key role.

The Issue: Smart car technologies are currently under development, and new standards will necessarily be set or will emerge during the development. EU antitrust law imposes certain rules on standard-setting and access to standard-essential patents to level the playing field. Part I of this series looks at standards and FRAND licensing terms. Part II will deal with platform regulation and access to data.