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 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 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…
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,…
According to the preliminary view of the European Commission expressed on 20 April, Google has violated EU competition law by imposing restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators. The Statement of Objections addressed to Google and to its parent company, Alphabet, specified that Google’s strategy concerning mobile devices has aimed to strengthen and…
On 18 March, the Commission has published its preliminary findings regarding geo-blocking in the EU. They demonstrate that practices whereby consumers are prevented from purchasing goods and accessing digital content online are widespread in the EU and may trigger competition concerns. This analysis forms part of the competition e-commerce sector inquiry launched in May 2015.…
The European Commission has issued two connected statements of objections to Qualcomm for exclusive dealings and predatory pricing, both potentially bringing about anti-competitive effects. The investigation against Qualcomm was opened in July 2015, when the Commission disclosed concerns about a possible abuse of dominant position by Qualcomm in the baseband chipset market. Eventually, at the…
On 25 November 2015, the Court of Appeal of Paris allowed the appeal of Google against a first instance decision granting damages to Evermaps for abuse of dominant position of Google. The two companies are direct competitors in the online map sector, as both companies offer a mapping service that allows users to embed a…