Following COVID-19 outbreak, on March 19th, the European Commission adopted a Temporary Framework to enable Member States to use the full flexibility foreseen under State aid rules to support the economy. The legal basis for the Temporary Framework is Article 107(3)(b) TFEU, which allows the Commission to declare compatible with the single European market aid…
On May 16th, 2019, the European Commission announced that it has entered into two settlements decisions with five banks (Barclays, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup, JPMorgan and MUFG), which have been fined €1.07 billion for taking part in two cartels in the Spot Foreign Exchange market for 11 currencies – namely Euro, British Pound,…
On May 13th, 2019, the European Commission fined (AB InBev) more than €200 million for abusing its dominant position on the Belgian beer market by hindering cheaper imports of its Jupiler beer from the Netherlands into Belgium. AB InBev is the world’s biggest beer brewer. Its most popular beer brand in Belgium is Jupiler, which…
On April 29th, 2019, the European Commission announced that it has made the commitments offered by Mastercard and Visa legally binding. Therefore, the companies should significantly reduce (on average by around 40%) their multilateral interchange fees (MIF) for payments in the European Economic Area (EEA) with consumer cards issued elsewhere. Inter-regional interchange fees are MIFs…
On April 5th, 2019, the European Commission has informed BMW, Daimler and VW (Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche) of its preliminary view that, from 2006 to 2014, they have colluded to restrict competition on the development of technology to clean the emissions of petrol and diesel passenger cars. According to the Commission, this collusion occurred in the…
On April 5th, 2019, the EU Commission sent Valve and five PC video game publishers (Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax) statements of objections in which it alleged that the companies breached EU competition rules by preventing consumers from purchasing videogames cross-border from other EU Member States. Valve is the owner of…
On March 25, 2019, the European Commission has fined Nike €12.5 million for banning traders from selling licensed merchandise to other countries within the EEA. The restriction concerned merchandising products of some of Europe’s best-known football clubs and federations, for which Nike held the licence. In June 2017 the Commission opened an antitrust investigation into…
The European Commission has just announced to have fined Google €1.49 billion for abusing its market dominance in the online search advertising intermediation market. In particular, the Commission has firstly alleged that Google is dominant in the market for online search advertising intermediation in the EEA because of its very high market shares, exceeding 85%…
The EU Commission has fined the car safety equipment suppliers Autoliv and TRW € 368 277 000 for taking part into two cartels for the supply of car safety equipments to European car producers. The suppliers acknowledged their involvement in the cartels and agreed to settle the case. According to the Commission, the three car equipment…
On January 22, 2019, the European Commission fined Mastercard €570 million on the assumption that its card scheme limited the possibility for merchants to benefit from better conditions offered by banks established elsewhere in the Single Market in contrast with the European competition rules. Mastercard offers a bank card scheme in the European Economic Area…