Andreas Reindl is a Partner at Van Bael & Bellis, based in Brussels. He is a highly experienced competition lawyer who has worked on a wide variety of competition law matters for nearly thirty years. A member of Van Bael & Bellis’ exceptional EU and UK competition team, Andreas has worked with international clients in the digital, energy, transport, financial and other sectors, advising on the full range of EU competition law issues. Andreas has worked on several high-profile merger investigations initiated by the European Commission and national competition authorities. Notable cases include Halliburton/BHI, where he advised Halliburton in the EU merger control filing and review of its proposed $34.6 billion acquisition of Baker Hughes; London Stock Exchange/Deutsche Börse; and Boeing’s proposed merger with Embraer. Andreas has represented several clients in antitrust investigations by the European Commission and national competition authorities, concerning both abuse of dominance and restrictive practices cases. In addition, he has broad experience advising clients on online distribution, pricing strategies, patents & licensing, and collaboration agreements. He works with several well-known brands and is currently involved in a number of high-profile cases, including the Google/Android case. Andreas receives high praise from clients for being ‘highly attentive’ and able to ‘quickly grasp the main issue, even when limited information is provided’ (Legal 500). Andreas also serves as a senior editor of the ABA Antitrust Committee’s Antitrust Law Journal. He previously served as Director of the Fordham Competition Law Institute at Fordham Law School, New York, and as a Principal Administrator at the OECD’s Competition Division. Prior to joining the OECD, Andreas worked for several years for a major international law firm in Brussels and Washington, DC, practising both EU competition law and US antitrust law.
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On 13 July 2023, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) handed down its judgment in Case C-376/20 P Commission v CK Telecoms UK Investments regarding the legal standard and burden of proof in so-called “gap cases”. These are cases in which a transaction – typically involving smaller players in (...)
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On 11 July 2023, the Italian Supreme Administrative Court (“Court”) upheld the fine imposed by the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) on Unilever for entering into unlawful exclusivity agreements with retailers, thus confirming the ICA’s highly restrictive view on the relevance and (...)
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On 4 July 2023, the Court of Justice (“CJEU”) handed down its highly anticipated judgment in Case C-252/21 Meta v Bundeskartellamt on the interplay between EU competition law and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”). The CJEU held that competition authorities can analyse a (...)
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On 26 June 2023, the German FCO ordered the state-owned German rail incumbent Deutsche Bahn (“DB”) to cease the abuse of its dominant position in relation to mobility platforms and ordered DB (along with other measures) to make DB’s real time traffic data available to rival mobility platforms. (...)
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On 14 June 2023, the Markets Court of the Brussels Court of Appeal (Marktenhof / Cour des marchés – the Markets Court) dismissed the appeal of retailer Carrefour against the decision of the Belgian Competition Authority (Belgische Mededingingsautoriteit / Autorité belge de la Concurrence – the (...)
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On 1 June 2023, the European Commission (“Commission”) adopted the final version of its new horizontals package, comprising revised Block Exemption Regulations on Research and Development Agreements and Specialisation Agreements and revised Guidelines on horizontal cooperation agreements (...)
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In June 2023, the Commission adopted new rules on horizontal agreements, which as from 1 July 2023 replace the existing rules that date from 2010/2011. These rules govern the compatibility with EU competition law – specifically Art. 101 TFEU – of certain types of agreements and forms of (...)
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On 1 June 2023, the European Commission (“Commission”) adopted the final version of its new horizontals package, comprising revised Block Exemption Regulations on Research and Development Agreements and Specialisation Agreements and revised Guidelines on horizontal cooperation agreements (...)
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On 1 June 2023, the European Commission (“Commission”) adopted the final version of its new horizontals package, comprising revised Block Exemption Regulations on Research and Development Agreements and Specialisation Agreements and revised Guidelines on horizontal cooperation agreements (...)
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On 17 May 2023, the General Court dismissed an application for annulment brought against a European Commission (“Commission”) decision declaring a concentration to be compatible with the common market due to the applicant’s lack of standing (Case T-321/20, enercity v Commission). The judgment (...)
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On 4 May 2023, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) imposed interim measures on Meta Platforms Inc., Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd. and Facebook France (“Meta”), to remedy the harm likely caused to the independent advertising verification sector and to the complainant Adloox SAS (“Adloox”) by (...)
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On 20 April 2023, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) imposed interim measures on Meta and ordered Meta to negotiate in good faith with the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers (“SIAE”), alleging that SIAE was economically dependent on Meta and that Meta, by terminating negotiations (...)
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On 20 April 2023, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) handed down a judgment which confirmed that the European Commission (“Commission”) can carve out the market of a Member State from the scope of an investigation and allow the Member State authority to investigate the same conduct for its (...)
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On 18 April 2023, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) accepted commitments offered by the Italian national rail incumbent, Trenitalia S.p.A. (“Trenitalia”), whereby Trenitalia will grant Italo – Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori (“NTV”), its competitor in high-speed rail transport services, (...)
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On 27 March 2023, the European Commission (“Commission”) launched a new legislative and policy initiative which aims to replace the Commission’s 2008 guidance on its enforcement priorities in Article 102 cases involving allegedly exclusionary conduct (the “2008 Guidance Paper”) with formal (...)
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On 27 March 2023, the European Commission (“Commission”) launched a new legislative and policy initiative which aims to replace the Commission’s 2008 guidance on its enforcement priorities in Article 102 cases involving allegedly exclusionary conduct (the “2008 Guidance Paper”) with formal (...)
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On 28 February 2023, the European Commission (the “Commission”) announced that in its investigation of Apple’s App Store terms for music streaming app developers, it has adopted a new statement of objections (“SO”) which replaces the previous SO issued against Apple back in April 2021, and (...)
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In its judgment of 16 February 2023, the Norwegian Supreme Court (the “Supreme Court”) affirmed the annulment of a decision by the Norwegian competition authority (“NCA”) which had prohibited Schibsted ASA (“Schibsted”) from acquiring a majority stake in the used car sales portal Nettbil AS (...)
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On 9 December 2022, the European Commission (“Commission”) published a Draft Implementing Regulation on detailed arrangements for the conduct of certain proceedings by the Commission pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 (“Draft Implementing Regulation”). The Draft Implementing Regulation (...)
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On 8 December 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) handed down a judgment (C-694/20, Orde van Vlaamse Balies) which appears to strengthen the protection afforded by legal professional privilege (“LPP”) under EU law. In its judgment, the CJEU has held for the first time (...)
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On 8 November 2022, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) delivered its judgment in Joined Cases C-885/19 P, Fiat Chrysler Finance Europe v Commission, and C-898/19 P, Ireland v Commission, annulling a 2015 Commission decision that had found that a transfer price tax (...)
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On 27 October 2022, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) handed down a ruling on the permissibility of private damages claims for excessive railway infrastructure fees under Article 102 TFEU. The ECJ found that a national court is precluded from awarding damages for excessive fees until the (...)
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In its landmark judgment of 27 September 2022 (KZB 75/21), the Bundesgerichtshof, the German Federal Court of Justice (“FCJ”), held that arbitral awards involving Sections 19 to 21 of the German Act against Restraints of Competition (“ARC”) related to the abuse of dominance, abuse of relative (...)
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On 20 September 2022, Advocate General (“AG”) Rantos delivered his opinion in Meta (Case C-252/21), concerning the interplay between the competition rules and GDPR, suggesting that non-compliance with data protection laws can be considered in competition law investigations and support the (...)
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In its judgment of 14 September 2022 (the “Judgment”), the General Court partially upheld Google’s appeal against the Commission’s 2018 Google/Android decision, but upheld the decision’s most important and consequential elements, thus confirming that certain of Google’s practices regarding the (...)
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In its Sept. 14 judgment in Google and Alphabet v. Commission, the European Union’s General Court partially upheld Google LLC’s appeal against the European Commission’s 2018 Google Android decision, but confirmed the decision’s most important and consequential elements. The court held that (...)
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On 27 August 2022, the 2021 Annual Law for the Market and Competition (the “Law”) entered into force. Its most significant changes include the right of the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) to review mergers below the notification thresholds, the introduction of a rebuttable presumption of (...)
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On 21 June 2022, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) announced that it accepted Google’s commitments related to compensating French publishers for the use of their journalistic content in a range of Google’s services. This brings to an end the FCA’s investigation into Google’s alleged (...)
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On 16 June 2022, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) announced that it accepted Meta’s commitments related to practices that would have raise competition concerns in the French market for non-search related online advertising. This clarifies the conditions of access to Meta’s partnership (...)
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On 10 June 2022, the Spanish Competition Authority (“SCA”) found that Enel Green Power SL (“Enel”), and its parent company Endesa Generación SA (“Endesa”) infringed the Spanish national provision prohibiting abuses of dominant position by taking advantage of its dominant position in the market (...)
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On 22 March 2022, the European Court of Justice (the “ECJ”) handed down two judgments highlighting that the European Union’s ne bis in idem principle – the equivalent to the protection against double jeopardy – provides only limited protection in competition law proceedings where the same (...)
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In its Sped-Pro judgment of 9 February 2022, the General Court of the European Union (“General Court”) for the first time examined the impact of deficiencies in the rule of law in an EU Member State on determining which competition authority in the EU is best placed to examine a complaint (...)
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Gazprom: General Court confirms Commission’s commitment decision but annuls a decision based on similar grounds to reject a complaint against Gazprom On 2 February 2022, the General Court of the European Union (the “Court”) issued two judgments which follow the European Commission’s (the (...)
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On 24 January 2022, the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (“ACM”) decided to impose periodic penalties on Apple for its failure to comply with a decision of 24 August 2021 requiring Apple to change its App Store payment rules. In that decision, the ACM found that Apple had abused its (...)
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On 20 January 2022, the European Commission (“Commission”) issued its (short) final report on the sector inquiry into consumer Internet of Things (“Report”), along with an explanatory Commission staff working document. The Report identifies various practices that may limit competition and (...)
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In a judgment of 19 January 2022, the General Court of the European Union (“Court”) awarded Deutsche Telekom AG (“DT”) € 1.8 million in damages, finding that the European Commission (“Commission”) had wrongly refused to pay default interest on the portion of a fine that DT had initially paid (...)
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According to a press release of 5 January 2022, the German Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) has decided that Alphabet Inc., including its subsidiary Google (“Google”), is of paramount significance for competition across markets pursuant to Section 19a of the German Act against Restraints of (...)
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On 15 December 2021, the European Parliament (“Parliament”) adopted its position for negotiating the final text of the so-called Digital Markets Act (Regulation on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector)(“DMA”), shortly after the Council of the European Union (“Council”) had (...)
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On 9 December 2021, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) adopted a decision finding that the Amazon group (“Amazon”) had violated Article 102 TFEU and harmed competing providers of e-commerce logistics services by tying the right of retailers on the Amazon marketplace to participate in (...)
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On 9 December 2021, the European Commission (“Commission”) approved a draft communication containing guidelines on the application of EU competition law to collective agreements regarding the working conditions of solo self-employed persons (“Draft Guidelines”). The Draft Guidelines reflect (...)
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On 18 November 2021, the European Commission (“Commission”) published a communication on a competition policy fit for new challenges (“Communication”). There has been a significant push toward a more European Union-centred industrial policy which would support the transition to a sustainable, (...)
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On 10 November 2021, the European General Court (“EGC” or “Court”) delivered its landmark Google Shopping judgment, the first judicial pronouncement on “self-preferencing” as a viable theory of harm under Article 102 TFEU. The EGC fully endorsed the European Commission’s (“Commission”) (...)
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On 9 July 2021, the European Commission (“Commission”) published the draft revised Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (“Draft VBER”) and draft revised guidelines on vertical restraints (“Draft VGL”), a key step in the context of the revision of the current regime governing vertical (...)
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On 22 June 2021, the heads of the national competition authorities (“NCAs”) published a joint position paper entitled How national competition authorities can strengthen the DMA (“NCA Paper”). The NCA Paper argues that NCAs are well placed to assist the European Commission (“Commission”) – and (...)
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In the course of the ongoing review of the application of the EU competition rules to horizontal cooperation agreements, the European Commission (“Commission”) published on 7 June 2021 an inception impact assessment (“IIA”) in relation to potential revisions to the Research and Development (...)
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In a decision of 7 June 2021, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) accepted a proposed settlement by Google LLC and Google Ireland Ltd (“Google”) with respect to certain online advertising practices. The decision also imposed a € 220 million fine on Google as it concluded that Google’s (...)
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On 27 April 2021, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) imposed a fine of over € 102 million on Alphabet Inc., Google LLC and Google Italy S.r.l. (collectively, “Google”) after concluding that Google had infringed Article 102 TFEU by refusing to include in Google’s own Android Auto app a (...)
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On 20 January 2021, the Regional Court of Munich I (the “Court”) issued two preliminary injunctions against Google Ireland Ltd. (“Google”) and the Federal Republic of Germany, represented by the German Federal Ministry of Health (“the Ministry”), at the request of health platform NetDoktor.de (...)
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On 16 December 2020, Markslöjd AB, a supplier of lighting products, accepted to pay a fine of SEK 1,780,000 for resale price maintenance. The Swedish Competition Authority (“SCA”) found that Markslöjd AB had violated competition law by entering into agreements with one of its resellers to fix (...)
272
On 15 December 2020, the European Commission (the “Commission”) presented a legislative package consisting of a proposed Regulation on a Single Market for Digital Services (“Digital Services Act” or “DSA”), which creates new rules applicable to providers of online intermediary services, as (...)
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On 28 September 2020, the competition authorities of Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Iceland issued a joint memorandum setting out their perspective on competition in digital markets (the “Joint Memorandum”). As previously reported in this newsletter (see, VBB on Competition Law, Volume (...)
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On 24 September 2020, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (the “FCA”) published its final report on the sector inquiry into the taxi and private hire car market (the “Report”). The comprehensive sector inquiry was launched in September 2019 to ascertain the effects of amendments to the (...)
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On 24 September 2020, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) modified its leniency guidelines so that companies that apply for leniency after the opening of a retail price maintenance (“RPM”) investigation should only expect to receive a maximum 50% discount in fines. Previously, (...)
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On 16 September 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “ECJ”) delivered a judgment in which it ruled on the status of “court or tribunal” within the meaning of Article 267 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union of a body which has submitted a reference for a preliminary (...)
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On 10 September 2020, Advocate General Saugmandsgaard Øe rendered his non-binding opinion in the context of a preliminary reference request from the German Federal Court of Justice on the interpretation of Article 7(2) of Regulation 1215/2012 (“Brussels I Bis”). This Article provides that in (...)
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On 16 July 2020, the European Commission (“Commission”) launched an antitrust sector inquiry into the market for the Internet of Things (IoT) for consumer-related products and services in the EU. According to the Commission, the sector inquiry will focus on consumer-related products and (...)
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On 1 July 2020, the German Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) published the final report on the sector inquiry on smart TVs which revealed serious transparency shortcomings in the privacy policies of all major market players in Germany. The FCO concluded that almost all smart TV manufacturers (...)
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On 1 July 2020, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) published its final report on its year-long market study into online platforms and the digital advertising market in the UK. The CMA found that existing competition law tools are not suitable for ensuring effective competition (...)
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One of the most controversial aspects in the recently adopted U.S. horizontal merger guidelines has been the “downgrading” of market definition and market shares in the analysis of differentiated products mergers. Observers have argued that the guidelines not only create too much agency (...)
