Martine Behar-Touchais

Case 2 illustrates the practices of an electronics manufacturer who is organizing his distribution network and is interessed in e-commerce to sell his products; The case was studied in the scope of the EU, French, German, US and Japanese competition laws. An economist and the legal director of (...)

For some authors, the person responsible under civil law would obey to some principles that are incompatible with those of the competition law. This opinion, however, must be resisted. This article aims to show that the presence, in competition law, of texts designating "the undertaking" as (...)

The present case involves customer allocation agreements between private pension funds. Romanian law requires persons under 35 years of age who contribute to the public pension scheme to join a pension fund (Article 30 of Law No 411/2004). Since everyone is free to choose his or her pension (...)

It will be recalled that Advocate General Wathelet had concluded that the judgment of the Court of First Instance in the LCD cartel case and the Commission’s decision in this case should be set aside, in so far as they had decided that the fine imposed on an undertaking could legally take into (...)

This decision by which the European Commission fined eight manufacturers and two distributors of food packaging trays for retail sale a total of €115,865,000 for participating in at least one of the five separate cartels found. The eight manufacturers are Huhtamäki (Finland), Nespak and (...)

By its decision of 20 July 2010 ((2010) 5001 final), the European Commission found that the main European producers of phosphates for animal feed (PAA) had agreed to share a large part of the European PAA market by allocating sales quotas by region and by customer. In addition, they had (...)

It was thought that Pates de bois I had settled everything on the question of the application of EU competition law to undertakings having their registered office outside the Union (ECJ 27 September 1988, cases C-89/85, 104/85, 114/85, 116/85, 117/85 and 125/85 to 129/85, EU:C:1988:447; P. (...)

After separating part of the case from the large "Flours" case currently pending before the Court of Cassation, the Competition Authority has issued its decision in the case of the artisanal bakery By decision of 26 March 2015, the French Competition Authority fines Axiane meunerie, (...)

CJEU 19 March 2015, Dole Food and Dole Fresh Fruit Europe v Commission, Case C-286/13 P It is interesting, after the Groupement des Cartes Bancaires judgment ("Groupement des Cartes Bancaires" judgment in CB v Commission, C-67/13 P, EU:C:2014:2204(see paragraph 49 and the case-law cited), (...)

Council Decision No. 15-D-03 of 11 March 2015 on practices in the fresh dairy products sector. Let it no longer be said that all the suppliers of mass distribution are lambs who tremble before the big bad wolf that is the mass distribution sign! The present case reveals that if Jean de La (...)

CJEU, 18 Dec. 2014, Commission v Parker Hannifin, Case C-434/13 P This case illustrates once again the problems of competition law in the face of restructuring. In 2001, Parker-Hannifin, the umbrella company of the Parker-Hannifin Group, and Saiag entered into discussions regarding the (...)

The European Commission has fined Bong of Sweden, GPV and Hamelin of France, Mayer-Kuvert of Germany and Tompla of Spain a total of €19,485,000 for price coordination and customer allocation for certain types of envelopes, in violation of EU rules on anti-competitive behaviour. In September (...)

The judgments of the Court of Justice of 19 May 2009 (Case C-109/08) and the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Communities (Case C-109/08) are well known. C-171/07 and 172/07 Apothekerkammer des Saarlandes and Others (C-171/07) and Helga Neumann-Seiwert (C-172/07) v Saarland and (...)

According to established case law, inaugurated by the Albany judgment (ECJ 21 September 1999 aff. C-67/96; see also Brentjens’, ECJ 21 September 1999 aff. C-115/97 to C-117/97, Drijvende Bokken, ECJ 21 September 1999 aff. C-219/97; Pavlov, ECJ 21 September 1999 cases C-180/98 to C-184/98; Van (...)

By Decision No. 12-D-09 of March 13, 2012242.6 million, the Competition Authority had sanctioned three cartels in the bagged flour sector (see D. Bosco, "Cartels in the food sector: would the Authority go ’a bit far’?"). Contracts conc. consom. May 2012, comm. 131). The case had started in (...)

Would "alliances from heaven" (http://www.latribune.fr/entreprises-finance/services/transport-logistique/20120514trib000698428/star-alliance-skyteam-oneworld-quel-avenir-pour-les-alliances-du-ciel-.html) kill off the competition? (...)

This is a very important decision, which can be described as a change of course (or a near turnaround), as the Court of Justice has returned to orthodoxy in its strict assessment of the concept of restriction by object, even though it refuses to change its case law. This decision concerns (...)

This much-awaited judgment raises the question of the possible modulation of the ceiling of the fine in the event of a succession of responsibilities in the commission of the offence. In this case, where an undertaking is held solely responsible for an infringement for a given period and was (...)

The company Competition is to competition law what the Patino couple are to private international law: a business contributor, and a spur, because in the abundance of questions asked by this operator, there is often at least one relevant one. In this case, the company Competition, which (...)

The Hamon law created the French collective redress. This collective redress has an attractive future, because: First, it will avoid the risk of prescription of private follow on actions. Second, when the competitive fault is established in the decision of the ANC, the civil fault is (...)

To mark its tenth anniversary, Concurrences has brought together 100 contributions answering the question: “Why antitrust?” The different disciplines in which the different contributors work ensures that a wide range of approaches is represented—the authors include historians, lawyers, (...)

This judgment clarifies the concept of previous financial year, referred to in Article 23(2) of Regulation 1/2003. It should be noted that the text states that ’for each undertaking and association of undertakings participating in the infringement, the fine shall not exceed 10 % of its total (...)

The gambling market has been partially opened to competition by the law of 12 May 2010. Nevertheless, in this area, there are always legal operators and illegal operators (although the ex ante regulation of ARJEL has contributed as much as possible to oust the illegal offering), and there (...)

Guardian Industries Corp. and Guardian Europe Sarl are part of the Guardian Group, which is active in the production of flat glass and automotive glass. Guardian Industries is the company at the head of the Guardian group and indirectly holds 100 % of the capital of Guardian Europe. (...)

CJEU, 10 April 2014, Areva and Others v Commission, cases C-247/11 and C-253/11. The imputability of anti-competitive practices in restructuring is not an easy task (cf. the DGCCRF Competition Workshop of 25 June 2014, co-directed by C. Lemaire and ourselves, online: (...)

Between the beginning of 1998 and the beginning of 2003, the three main operators in the automotive glass sector in Europe, Asahi, Pilkington and Saint-Gobain, entered into illegal market-sharing agreements and exchanged commercially sensitive information concerning supplies of automotive (...)

Encouraging innovation and protecting competition: this is the stated objective of the European Commission in drafting the new competition regime for technology transfer agreements. This regime consists of two texts, the block exemption regulation for technology transfer agreements, which (...)

The question of determining the penalty for an anti-competitive practice has often posed difficulties when the practice is committed by an enterprise that is part of a group of companies. Article L. 464-2, paragraph 4 of the French Commercial Code (in its wording resulting from the NRE law (...)

Trib.UE 6 February 2014, Arkema France and ECSC, cases T-23/10 and T-24/10 Trib. EU, 6 February 2014, AC-Treuhand, case T-27/10 Trib UE 6 February 2014, Elf Aquitaine, aff. T-40/10 We recall the heat stabilisers cartel case in which the European Commission, on 11 November 2009, imposed (...)

This article brings together 3 contributions from the conference "A new vision of the economic regulation" held in Paris the 24th September 2013 and organized by the French competition Authority and the French Council of State. The whole of conference contributions is under publication at the (...)

It will be recalled that by Decision No. 11-D-17 of 8 December 2011367.9 million, the French Competition Authority had sanctioned a cartel between the four laundry detergent manufacturers active in France (Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Henkel and Colgate Palmolive) in the amount of The (...)

MasterCard operates an "open" (or "four-party") payment card system. Unlike a closed (or "three-party") system, such as that of American Express, in which the system owner itself enters into contracts with cardholders and merchants, an open system, to which different financial institutions may (...)

Umbrella effects on prices occur when undertakings which are not themselves parties to a cartel deliberately or otherwise set their own prices, in the wake of the cartel’s actions, at a higher level than the conditions of competition would otherwise have allowed them to do. Is it EU law to (...)

The European Commission has discovered that the four main producers of flexible polyurethane foam, Vita, Carpenter, Recticel and Eurofoam, participated in a cartel. It imposed a total fine of € 114 077 000 on them. Flexible polyurethane foam is mainly used in household furniture such as (...)

Law No. 2013-2 of countries on competition in New Caledonia adopted in June 25, 2013 is a revolution of competition law in New Caledonia, made necessary by the competitive urgency that existed in this country. The new law introduced merger control, control of operations of commercial urban (...)

The Hamon Bill will substantially modify the powers of the French economic administration with regards to restrictive practices. This administration will now be entitled to issue injunctions and inflict administrative fines. The administrative judge will review such decisions. This will (...)

This article reproduces the opening papers delivered at the AFEC conference on contractual practices and competition law in Paris on October 25, 2010. According to the Professor Chagny, the examination of the links between contractual practices and competition law lato sensu reveals (...)

Introductory remarks Laurence Idot Professor, Universtité Paris II, European College Director of the Scientific Committee of Concurrences Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear friends, As the afternoon is busy, I will not go into the substance of the colloquium, but on behalf (...)