Giovanni Pregno

Jul 31, 2024 | concurrences.com | Van Bael |Giovanni Pregno |Niharika Parshurampuria |Catherine Gordley

On 1 August 2024, the European Commission (“Commission”) launched a public consultation on its draft Guidelines on exclusionary abuses of dominance (“Draft Guidelines”). The Draft Guidelines summarise the Commission’s interpretation of the law governing the application of Article 102 TFEU to exclusionary abuses of dominance. As could be expected from the Commission’s 2023 revision of its Article 102 Guidance Paper and the accompanying Policy Brief previewing the key elements of future Article...

Jul 31, 2024 | concurrences.com | Van Bael |Giovanni Pregno |Niharika Parshurampuria |Catherine Gordley

On 1 August 2024, the European Commission (“Commission”) launched a public consultation on its draft Guidelines on exclusionary abuses of dominance (“Draft Guidelines”). The Draft Guidelines summarise the Commission’s interpretation of the law governing the application of Article 102 TFEU to exclusionary abuses of dominance. As could be expected from the Commission’s 2023 revision of its Article 102 Guidance Paper and the accompanying Policy Brief previewing the key elements of future Article...

Jul 28, 2024 | concurrences.com | Van Bael |Trajan Shipley |Giovanni Pregno |Michael Clancy

On 29 July 2024, the Spanish Competition Authority (“SCA”) imposed its largest ever fine (€ 413 million) on Booking.com, the leading online travel agent, for abusing its dominant position in the market for intermediary online travel agent services for hotels. In its decision, the SCA found that Booking.com committed an exploitative abuse by imposing unfair trading conditions on hotels. According to the applicable case-law (see BRT v SABAM, C-127/73), unfair trading conditions imposed by a dom...

Jun 26, 2024 | concurrences.com | Van Bael |Giovanni Pregno |Michael Clancy |Andreas Reindl

On 27 June 2024, the Court of Justice of the EU (“CJEU”) delivered its judgments in the Servier case (Cases C-176/19 P et al), siding with the European Commission’s initial decision and setting forth an analysis that will increase the risks that patent settlement agreements can be found to infringe EU competition law. In particular, the CJEU (i) applied principles to market definition in pharmaceutical cases that will often result in very narrow markets (making findings of dominance more like...

May 28, 2024 | mondaq.com | Andreas Reindl |Giovanni Pregno

On 24 April 2024, the European Commission (Commission) activated for the first time the International Procurement Instrument (IPI), opening an investigation into procurement procedures for medical devices in China. The IPI is a recent addition to the Commission toolbox of trade-related instruments designed to promote access to foreign procurement markets (see our alert of June 2022).