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Dec 17, 2024 | 
concurrences.com | Van Bael |Van Hove |Jean-François Bellis |Valérie Lefever
On 18 December 2024, the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA) published what it calls a “short guide for tech challengers” (the Guide) which discusses the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the benefits which the DMA is intended to bring to the digital sector in terms of innovation and competition by reducing entry and expansion barriers and improving fairness in the dealings of third parties with specific gatekeepers, the largest digital platforms in Europe (see, English version attached). These w...
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Sep 2, 2024 | 
concurrences.com | Van Bael |Michael Clancy |Peter L'Ecluse |Valérie Lefever
Previous article Next article Share on | Yesterday, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the CJEU ) set aside the judgment in which the General Court ( GC ) had confirmed the competence of the European Commission (the Commission ) to review (and ultimately prohibit) the acquisition of Grail by Illumina and annulled the Commission’s decisions to accept to review this case following referral requests by France and other Member States (CJEU, judgment of 3 September in...
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Sep 2, 2024 | 
concurrences.com | Van Bael |Michael Clancy |Peter L'Ecluse |Valérie Lefever
Yesterday, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the CJEU ) set aside the judgment in which the General Court ( GC ) had confirmed the competence of the European Commission (the Commission ) to review (and ultimately prohibit) the acquisition of Grail by Illumina and annulled the Commission’s decisions to accept to review this case following referral requests by France and other Member States (CJEU, judgment of 3 September in Joined Cases C-611/22 P and C-625/22 P...
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Jul 2, 2024 | 
concurrences.com | Van Bael |Jean-François Bellis |Peter L'Ecluse |Valérie Lefever
The Belgian Competition Authority ( BCA ) announced yesterday that it imposed fines totalling EUR 47 million on three private security firms, Securitas, G4S and Seris, for collusive behaviour that lasted from 2008 to 2020. The infringement was three-pronged: The parties engaged in a price-fixing cartel by agreeing to apply minimum hourly tariffs for their security services. The parties coordinated their behaviour in relation to public procurement and other tendering procedures. They decided ...
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Jul 2, 2024 | 
concurrences.com | Van Bael |Jean-François Bellis |Peter L'Ecluse |Valérie Lefever
The Belgian Competition Authority ( BCA ) announced yesterday that it imposed fines totalling EUR 47 million on three private security firms, Securitas, G4S and Seris, for collusive behaviour that lasted from 2008 to 2020. The infringement was three-pronged: The parties engaged in a price-fixing cartel by agreeing to apply minimum hourly tariffs for their security services. The parties coordinated their behaviour in relation to public procurement and other tendering procedures. They decided ...
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Jun 11, 2024 | 
concurrences.com | Van Bael |Van Hove |Jean-François Bellis |Valérie Lefever
The Belgian Competition Authority ( BCA ) published on 13 June 2024 an opinion analysing the benefits and drawbacks of a possible merger with other market regulators (the Opinion ). The Opinion was in response to two draft Resolutions regarding a possible merger of several market regulators tabled with the Chamber of Representatives of the federal Parliament (draft Resolutions 55K3033 and 55K0073). The Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications ( ), the Commission for ...
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Mar 20, 2024 | 
concurrences.com | Van Bael |Michael Clancy |Peter L'Ecluse |Valérie Lefever
Previous article Next article Share on | In a remarkable plot twist in an already eventful saga, Advocate General ( AG ) Nicholas Emiliou proposed today to the Court of Justice of the European Union (the CJEU ) to set aside the judgment in which the General Court ( GC ) had confirmed the competence of the European Commission (the Commission ) to review (and ultimately prohibit) the acquisition of Grail by Illumina (the AG Opinion ; available here). Should the CJEU decide to follow the AG...
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Dec 19, 2023 | 
concurrences.com | Van Bael |Valérie Lefever |Giovanni Pregno |Andreas Reindl
On 20 December 2023, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) fined Sony € 13.5 million for abusing its dominant position in the market for the supply of controllers for the PlayStation 4 (“PS4”) video game console between November 2015 and April 2020. This case was initiated after Subsonic, a French manufacturer of PS4-compatible video game controllers affected by Sony’s practices, alleged that Sony had made it more difficult to use certain third-party video game controllers with Sony’s PS4.
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Oct 22, 2023 | 
concurrences.com | Van Bael |Valérie Lefever
Article précédent Article suivant Partager sur | On 23 October 2023, the Competition College (Mededingingscollege / Collège de la Concurrence) of the Belgian Competition Authority (Belgische Mededingingsautoriteit / Autorité belge de la Concurrence – the BCA ) imposed a fine of EUR 778,777 on pharmaceutical wholesaler CERP for participating in a cartel concerning the service of transfer orders ( TOs ). TOs involve orders placed directly by pharmacists with L'accès à cet article est réservé...
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Oct 22, 2023 | 
concurrences.com | Van Bael |Jean-François Bellis |Valérie Lefever
Previous article Next article Share on | In Belgium’s first hybrid cartel case, involving both settling and non-settling parties, Van Bael & Bellis assisted CERP, one of the three pharmaceutical wholesalers on the Belgian market, in obtaining a significantly more favourable outcome than that offered to the settling parties in the settlement procedure that ended in February 2022 with the imposition of a relatively high fine on one of the settling wholesalers (see press release). CERP, along...
