Alfonso Lamadrid De Pablo

This article has been nominated for the 2015 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. Some thoughts on the new anti-Google (Android) complaint* Some background to the complaint Back in April the FairSearch coalition in this case only two of its (...)

Case T-111/08, Mastercard. A priceless Art. 101(3) assessment* A while ago we wrote a post on The Slow Death of Article 101(3) TFEU, where we said that in recent European Commission, practice, only once the challenged agreement was not deemed to be a restriction by “object”, and that only in (...)

Antitrust Compliance The European Commission has just released a brochure entitled Compliance matters: What companies can do better to respect EU competition rules. The foreword says that companies should “[l]ook at this brochure as a road safety brochure ahead of the holiday period“. Many of (...)

The Spanish CNC at the avant-garde of competition enforcement?* In a previous post that appeared on Chillin’Competition we referred to the Spanish Competition Authority’s decision sanctioning the main Spanish electricity companies with fines totaling some 61 million euros as a good illustration (...)

The NFL Lockout* In our belief that the application of competition law to the world of sports has a tremendous potential that still today remains to a great extent unexplored in the EU. Not only are sports-related cases some of the most visible ones at the EU level (for the general public (...)

Google Books Settlement Rejected* Some of you will recall that roughly a year ago I wrote a post on the Google Books settlement (“Google Books Settlement: It’s the search market stupid!”) in which I argued that the only competitive problem, if any, posed by the amended settlement related to the (...)

The ECJ rules on parenthood (General Química v Commission)* The ECJ issued a Judgment yesterday in the General Química-Repsol case in which it partly upheld and partly annulled the General Court’s judgment dismissing the appeals against the Commission decision in the rubber chemicals cartel. In (...)

Information exchange=cartel?* Many have praised the inclusion of some guidance on exchanges of information within the new EU Guidelines on horizontal agreements. Personally, I agree with those arguing that guidance from the Commission was necessary, and I acknowledge that there are some useful (...)

Wrapping up the week / Case T-427/08, CEAHR v Commission* Case T-427/08, CEAHR v Commission The complaint: The European Confederation for watch repairers associations lodged a complaint before the Commission alleging that watch manufacturers had engaged in agreements and/or concerted (...)

Wrapping up the week / Case T-427/08, CEAHR v Commission* This week was full of news, some of which we didn’t echo here. This is a quick overview of what has happened since Monday: The European Commission adopted its new guidelines on horizontal agreements and, as anticipated on this blog (...)

Sale of Football TV Rights: One size fits all?* The Spanish NCA adopted last week its long-awaited decision with regards to the sale of television rights for the national football championship. The essence of its decision is simple: agreements concluded between football clubs and television (...)

Spanish Court of Appeal strikes down CNC’s Inspection Practices* The Audiencia Nacional (‘AN’) – i.e. the Spanish Court in charge of the review of decisions adopted by the Spanish National Competition Commission (‘CNC’) – recently delivered an important judgment quashing some of the CNC’s (...)