On June 20, the European Commission has adopted an amending decision concerning the Spanish raw tobacco cartel. In 2004, the Commission fined five companies active in the Spanish raw tobacco market a total of €20 million for fixing the prices paid to, and the quantities bought from, tobacco growers in Spain. World Wide Tobacco España…
The European Commission has readopted a cartel settlement decision against the envelopes manufacturer Printeos and it has re-imposed a fine of €4,729,000 for its participation in a price fixing cartel. In December 2014, in order to close the Commission’s investigation, Printeos and four other manufacturers entered into a settlement agreement. However, in December 2016…
On 14 June 2017, the European Commission has opened three separate antitrust investigations to investigate whether certain licensing and distribution practices of Nike, Sanrio and Universal Studios illegally restrict their licensees from selling the licensed merchandise cross-border and online. More specifically, the investigations concern the licensing and distribution of merchandising products, such as clothes, shoes,…
On 6 June 2017, the European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation into the distribution agreements and practices of clothing manufacturer and retailer Guess. Guess operates as a manufacturer, distributor and licensor of clothing and accessories. According to the opening statement, the investigation is aimed at ascertaining whether Guess illegally restricted retailers from selling…
On 1 June 2017, the European Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Romania’s gas transmission system operator Transgaz has abused a dominant position by hindering gas exports from Romania to the other EU Member States and isolating the Romanian gas market to the detriment of consumers throughout the EU. Romania is the…
The 2014 General Block exemption Regulation (the “Regulation”) exempts certain categories of state aid from the requirement of prior notification to the Commission and they can be implemented by Member States without prior Commission approval, provided they meet certain requirements and they are unlikely to distort competition in the single market. The decision to widen…
On 15 May 2017 the European Commission has opened its first excessive pricing investigation in the pharmaceutical industry to assess whether Aspen Pharma has abused a dominant position by charging excessive pricing for five life-saving cancer medicines. More specifically, the investigation concerns Aspen’s pricing practices for niche medicines used for treating cancer, such as hematologic…
The European Commission has rendered legally binding the commitments offered by Amazon in the e-book case. The Commission opened an antitrust investigation in June 2015 to assess whether some clauses included in Amazon’s agreements with publishers for the distribution of English and German language e-books in the European Union complied with competition law. In particular,…
The Austrian Cartel Court fined De’Longhi-Kenwood with EUR 650.000 for fixing prices with retailers, restricting cross-border trade and introducing a full blown online-distribution-prohibition. In the years 2006-2015 staff of De’Longhi-Kenwood observed the market multiple-times during the week and pressured retailers through immediate contacts (via email or telephone conversations) when price-discrepancies from the established minimum-prices were…
On 1 February 2017, the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) formally opened an investigation into Telecom Italy S.p.A. and Fastweb S.p.A. agreements for a possible violation of Art. 101 TFEU. The investigation concerns the agreement with which the undertakings in question created a joint cooperative company, called Flash Fiber Srl, for the construction of optical fiber…