Alexandre G. Verheyden

What happened? The European Court of Justice ("ECJ") set aside a General Court ruling that had upheld a €1.06 billion fine imposed by the European Commission on Intel for abusing its dominant position in the market for x86 central processing units ("CPUs"). Background In its 2009 decision, (...)

On June 6, 2017, Belgium adopted legislation ("Law") transposing the EU directive on private antitrust damages (Directive 2014/104, ("Directive")). The Law became applicable on June 22, 2017, and is expected to boost private competition law enforcement in Belgium and should enhance the full (...)

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently ruled that dawn raids carried out at the premises of two French construction companies by the DGCCRF (French Department for Competition, Consumer Protection and Fraud) violated both the rights of defense and the right to privacy, due to (...)

The European Commission has published revised safe harbor rules for agreements that are not deemed to appreciably restrict competition. This is the so-called "De Minimis Notice," the first version of which dates back to 2001. At the same time, the Commission also published guidance on the (...)

European Union Adopts New Rules for Technology Licensing Agreements* The European Union has a new regime for assessing technology licensing agreements under EU competition law. The new rules include a new technology transfer block exemption regulation (“TTBER”), which exempts certain bilateral (...)

This article has been nominated for the 2014 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. The European Commission has imposed an unprecedented €561 million ($730 million) fine on Microsoft, finding it broke its pledge to offer consumers a choice of how (...)

The European Commission has imposed an unprecedented €561 million ($730 million) fine on Microsoft, finding it broke its pledge to offer consumers a choice of how they access the Internet, rather than defaulting to Microsoft’s Explorer browser. This is the first time a company has been fined for (...)

A new supra-national African competition law regime, the COMESA Competition Commission ("CCC"), began operations in January 2013. This new regime includes new merger control regulations likely to have a significant impact on international businesses with local operations in the region. The CCC (...)

This article has been nominated for the 2012 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. On 17 February 2011, the European Union Court of Justice ("CJ") issued a preliminary ruling in an ongoing case concerning price squeeze abuses. Questions were (...)

This article is the winner for the business category, unilateral conducts section of the 2012 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. On 14 October 2010, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) upheld the European Commission’s € 12.6 million fine on (...)

On 22 April 2010, Advocate General (‘AG’) Jan Mazák at the European Court of Justice (‘ECJ’) issued his opinion in Deutsche Telekom‘s appeal to the ECJ against the General Court ruling upholding the European Commission decision to impose a € 12.6 M fine on Deutsche Telekom for abusive margin squeeze. (...)

The detection and punishment of illegal cartels are at the top of the European Commission’s enforcement agenda. In 2001, the Commission meted out record fines in cartel cases totaling $ 1.6 billion, eclipsing the U.S. single-year record of $ 1.1 billion. Historically, the Commission’s fabled « (...)