On September 27, 2017, the European Commission found that Scania broke EU antitrust rules. The collusion concerned the new emission technologies required by the Euro III to Euro VI environmental standards, specifically coordination on timing and coordination on passing on of costs of emission technologies for trucks compliant with newly introduced emissions standards. The infringement…
On September 15, 2017, the ECJ rejected LG Electronics’ (“LG”) and Philips Electronics’ (“Philips”) appeals against the General Court’s judgment of 2015 that confirmed the Commission’s infringement decision in the cathode ray tube (“CRT”) cartel. The judgment today ends the companies’ fight against the 2012 fines for their involvement in the cartel by the CRT manufacturing joint venture…
On September 15, 2017, in case C-177/16, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) ruled that comparing prices between EU member states is a valid way to determine whether prices may be abusively excessive and competition regulators have a certain margin of discretion in deciding whether prices are excessive in the absence of a single adequate…
The European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) sets aside the judgment of the General Court, which had upheld the fine of 1.06 billion euros imposed on Intel by the Commission for abuse of a dominant position. The case is now referred back to the General Court in order for it to examine the arguments put forward…
On 24 August 2017, the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) adopted an infringement decision against the Golf club manufacturer Ping Europe Limited (“Ping”) for banning UK retailers from selling its golf clubs online. More precisely, Ping was found to breach Chapter I of the Competition Act 1998 and Article 101 TFEU by preventing two UK…
On 27 July 2017, the European Commission has required Belgium and France to abolish the corporate tax exemptions granted to their ports on the basis that profits by port operators must be taxed under normal national corporate tax laws to comply with European State aid rules. Therefore, if port operators generate profits from economic activities,…
On 6 July 2017, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) has rejected Toshiba’s appeal against the judgment of the General Court of 19 January 2016 and upheld the €61.44 million fine imposed by the Commission against Toshiba (of which €4.65 million jointly and severally with Mitsubishi) for its participation in the gas insulated switchgear (“GIS”)…
On June 30, 2017, the European Commission has found that a Polish progressive tax on the retail sector is in breach of EU state aid rules. More precisely, following a complaint, the Commission opened an investigation in September 2016 concerning a Polish measure that allows companies operating in Poland in the retail sector to pay…
On June 27, 2017, the European Commission has fined Google €2.42 billion for having abused its alleged market dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to its comparison shopping service. According to the Commission, Google is dominant in the search engine market by providing search results to consumers who pay for the…
On June 21, 2017, the European Commission has fined Automotive Lighting and Hella a total of €26.744.000 for participating in an automotive lighting cartel. The cartel concerned the supply of vehicle lighting systems, that include parts such as headlamps or daytime running lights, to manufacturers of passenger and commercial vehicles after the end of mass…