After almost three years since the Commission sent Apple its statement of objections, which was significantly trimmed down, the Commission reached a finding of abuse for which it imposed a whopping fine of 1.8 billion euros. Alongside this case, Apple was also involved in an almost identical case running parallel in the Netherlands, with similar findings. Meanwhile, during these procedures, the Digital Markets Act, which covers the main constraints in both cases, entered into force and is expected to change the AppStore terms significantly. The interplay between these three developments delive ..read more

This fifth edition of ‘the antitrust you should’ve read last year’ has three entries. This is notably fewer than the four to six books included the previous years, which is due either to a slow year in antitrust publishing, or to my starting a new job and having less time to read. There were also some last-minute contenders such as Pablo Ibáñez Colomo’s The New EU Competition Law but as it published just two weeks before year-end, you’ll forgive for not getting through it yet. And someone published a decent book about antitrust and digital platforms but by including it, I would be self-referen ..read more

The deadline for appeals on the gatekeeper designation under the DMA is nearing its end.  Since the DMA imposes gatekeepers with demanding obligations, it is only natural that the potential subjects of this regulation will attempt to contest this status. What remains, however, to be clarified is what prospective gatekeepers can put forward as evidence to avoid being designated as one and how EU Courts should deal with such appeals to keep a clear division between the DMA and art. 102 TFEU? Getting  the gatekeeper status The status of gatekeeper under the DMA is defined as an undertak ..read more

About a month ago the European Commission announced that it was prohibiting the acquisition of eTraveli by Booking Holdings (Booking.com). The prohibition, which is a rare occurrence in itself, did not attract much attention beyond comments on the ‘ecosystem’ theory of harm which it may have introduced. But this case offers more than that. First, it shows that current practice is finally adapting to the realities of multisided platforms by essentially translating the concept of conglomerate effects to platform set-ups. Second it also shows that the difference between the concepts gatekeeper (p ..read more

This summer the European commission (finally) announced it will start a formal investigation against Microsoft following Slack’s complaint concerning the (abusive) tying or bundling or Teams to the Microsoft and Office 365 suites. Not long after, Microsoft came out with an official statement concerning the changes in its pricing and distribution strategy  of Teams it will introduce in order to alleviate the concerns identified by the Commission. This week’s post discusses how, if pursued, the case may prove to be yet another landmark case on tying and bundling. Factual background During t ..read more

Introduction On 13 July 2023, the European Court of Justice (‘ECJ’) delivered its highly anticipated ruling in CK Telecoms UK Investments v European Commission (‘CK Telecoms’). The Grand Chamber judgment is significant at the most fundamental level. It clarifies some of the core legal concepts and principles at the very heart of EU merger control. The five crucial issues the ECJ deals with are (1) the standard of proof under the EU Merger Regulation (‘EUMR’); (2) unilateral effects in so-called ‘gap cases’; (3) the scope and limits of judicial review in competition law; (4) the concepts of ‘cl ..read more

We’re happy to announce that Lexxion publisher has become a media partner to the FIDE Congress, one of the most distinguished events on EU law. Of particular interest for the readers of the CoRe blog and the CoRe journal is the second topic of the congress, dedicated to the new geopolitical dimension of the EU competition and trade policies. You can find more details about the congress, its speakers and programme below. We hope to see you in Sofia!  The International Federation of European Law (FIDE), announced a visionary XXX edition of the FIDE Congress, which is planned to take place i ..read more

On 28 February 2023, the European Commission (EC) sent Apple a new Statement of Objections (SO) ‘clarifying its concerns over App Store rules for music streaming providers’. Rather than a clarification, or an expansion of the previous SO, the new SO dropped one of the two objections—an unusual move, especially at this stage of the proceedings. When a startup shuts down, as many of them do, founders are in the habit of writing up a post-mortem providing an analysis of what exactly went wrong so that other founders can avoid making the same mistakes. My idea is to provide a post-mortem for the o ..read more

Last month the CJEU delivered an interesting ruling on the scope of application of art. 102 TFEU when dealing with excessive or unfair prices in the railway sector. A first reading of the final conclusion of the CJEU would give the impression that the scope of application of art. 102 TFEU is being unduly restricted with this case by making the application of art. 102 TFEU in such context dependent upon the preliminary assessment of the national sectoral regulator based on secondary legislation. The question is whether this impression is correct and whether secondary legislation is truly capabl ..read more

THE MODERNISATION OF EU MERGER CONTROL The long-awaited judgment in the Illumina/Grail art. 22 EUMR dispute was announced on 13 July 2022. The General Court confirmed that the European Commission has the power to decide on a merger, referred to it by a Member State, that does not meet the EU thresholds nor was it notified nationally. What follows is my personal view on the consequences of the ruling and what, if anything, could have been done differently.   A landmark judgment The Illumina/Grail case is important because its outcome clarifies whether the European Commission (EC) can inves ..read more