42 results found

On 6 December 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union handed down its judgment in the AstraZeneca case, following an appeal against a 2010 judgment of the General Court which itself had upheld in large part an earlier decision of the European Commission that had imposed a € 60 million fine on the company for abuse of the patent system and regulatory procedures in the pharmaceutical sector.

The European Commission's newly adopted Article 102 TFEU Guidelines on exclusionary abuses of dominance represent a significant shift in EU competition law enforcement. Legal experts and economists debate whether these guidelines truly provide legal certainty or introduce problematic presumptions that could chill innovation, particularly in the technology sector where they intersect with the Digital Markets Act.

Under the European greenhouse gas emission trading scheme, industrial firms are required to cover their emissions of greenhouse gasses with an amount of emission allowances corresponding to their actual emissions.

Article 5(3) of the Brussels I Regulation provides that, in matters relating to tort, a person domiciled in an EU Member State may, in another EU Member State, be sued "in the courts for the place where the harmful event occurred or may occur".

The German competition authority fined a mattress manufacturer €8.2 million for imposing resale price maintenance on retailers selling its products.

The European Commission has recently released its annual Report on Competition Policy for 2012.

A Belgian court has suspended a €750 million casino concession after the contracting authority failed to include mandatory Foreign Subsidies Regulation notification requirements in its tender procedures. The ruling demonstrates that national courts are prepared to directly enforce FSR compliance obligations in public procurement, potentially creating new enforcement dynamics similar to those seen in State aid cases.

The European Commission has opened a public consultation on proposed revisions to the EU Merger Regulation, designed to bring certain acquisitions of non-controlling minority shareholdings into the Commission's merger control jurisdiction and to facilitate the referral of merger cases from Member State competition authorities to the Commission.

The E-commerce Directive prohibits EU Member States from restricting the freedom to provide information society services from another EU Member State.

In a judgment of 7 December 2010, the European Court of Justice adopted a preliminary ruling in the VEBIC case relating to the right of the Competition Council to participate in appeals against its own decisions.

The European Commission published a preliminary report on its initial findings in the e-commerce sector inquiry, aimed at identifying business practices in the sector that might restrict competition and limit consumer choice.

On 12 July 2011, the General Court ("GC") handed down its judgments in four appeals brought by addressees of the European Commission’s gas insulated switchgear cartel decision.

The Supreme Court recently handed down two judgments on the repackaging of parallel imported pharmaceuticals.

On 7 December 2017, a Bill on the reform of business law was submitted to the Federal Chamber of Representatives.

In commercial trade, it is not unusual that a distributor or producer of goods refuses to deliver or sell its services or goods to a certain dealer, but it is important to know which rules and principles may apply.

On 27 August 2015, the Belgian government submitted a bill to the Chamber of Representatives that amends in various respects the Code of Economic Law of 28 February 2013.

The European Commission has delivered its first three-year review of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, declaring the enforcement framework "fit for purpose" while acknowledging significant administrative burden on market participants. Though the regime has processed thousands of notifications since 2023, resulting in only a handful of in-depth investigations, the Commission has committed to targeted procedural simplifications expected in 2027, even as it doubles down on scrutinizing state-backed acquirers a

The Competition Directorate-General of the European Commission (DG Competition) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States have jointly issued revised Best Practices on Cooperation in Merger Investigations.