On February 21, 2018, in three separate settlement decisions, the European Commission fined four maritime car carriers €395 million, two suppliers of spark plugs €76 million, and two suppliers of braking systems €75 million for having concluded anti-competitive agreements in breach of article 101 TFEU. I. Maritime car carriers The Commission found that the…
The European Commission has fined Tokai Rika, Takata, Autoliv, Toyoda Gosei and Marutaka a total of € 34 million for breaching EU antitrust rules. The five suppliers acknowledged their involvement in the cartels and agreed to settle the case. Takata was not fined for three of the cartels as it revealed their existence to the…
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 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 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…
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 8 Setptember 2016, the General Court handed down its judgment in the Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries and Ranbaxy v Commission case, confirming the fines imposed by the Commission´s decision in 2013. The Court agreed that the agreement under scrutiny resulted in a restriction of competition by object. But firsts things first, the case regards the…
On 16 June 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union rejected the appeals brought by SKW (C-154/14 P) and Degussa (C-155/14 P) against the General Court’s rulings, which had upheld the decision adopted by the Commission in the calcium carbide cartel. By that decision, the Commission had fined 9 suppliers of calcium carbide…
The four sanctioned companies are Fisioterapia, Iriteb, L’Eivax y Centro de Accidentes Laborales y Rehabilitación Gramenet (Carlg). The fines imposed are the following: Fisioterapia: 600,000 euros; Iriteb has been fined 240,000 euros, L’Eivax 80,000 euros and Carlg 30,000 euros. According to research conducted by ACCO, it has been concluded that after the public tender called…
On 9 September the General Court issued the judgments reducing the fines imposed by the Commission in 2012 (Case COMP/39.437) on Panasonic and Toshiba for their involvement in a cartel on the European market for picture tubes for television sets. Following the leniency application submitted by Chunghwa, the Commission imposed in the contested decision the…