Jean-François Bellis

On 31 May 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the "Court") had the opportunity to clarify the scope of the standstill obligation included in Article 7(1) of Regulation 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings, i.e. the prohibition to (...)

On 16 May 2018, the General Court of the European Union (the "General Court") partially annulled the European Commission’s decision of 25 July 2016 rejecting the request of the German airline Deutsche Lufthansa AG (hereinafter "Lufthansa") to be exempted from the tariff commitments to which it (...)

On April 24, 2018, the European Commission announced that it had imposed a fine of €124.5 million on the Dutch group Altice for having acquired the Portuguese telecommunications and multimedia operator PT Portugal prior to the notification of this concentration and its clearance by the (...)

On October 26, 2017, the Court of First Instance of the European Union annulled a 2014 decision by which the European Commission authorized Liberty Global to acquire the Dutch cable operator Ziggo, subject to compliance with commitments. Liberty Global is an international group of cable (...)

In a judgment of October 26, 2017, the European Court of First Instance confirmed the European Commission’s decision of July 23, 2014 to impose a fine of €20 million on the Norwegian fish farming company Marine Harvest for having acquired the Norwegian salmon producer Morpol in December 2012 (...)

The European Commission has sanctioned Facebook, owner of the social network of the same name, for providing "inaccurate or misleading" information during the Commission’s review of Facebook’s plans to acquire the consumer messaging application WhatsApp. This is the first time that the (...)

Advocate General Juliane Kokott has delivered her Opinion in the first preliminary ruling in the merger control proceedings. This concerns the material scope of application of the EC Merger Regulation 139/2004 ("the EC Merger Regulation") and more particularly the concept of full-function (...)

On 27 March 2017, following an in-depth Phase II review, the European Commission cleared the merger between the US groups Dow and DuPont, subject to compliance with commitments made by the parties. Dow is the parent company of the eponymous American group. It is active in the plastics, (...)

The European Commission has conditionally approved Microsoft’s acquisition of the LinkedIn professional social network. The conditions attached to this clearance were linked to the Commission’s concerns that the transaction would allow Microsoft to use the strong position of its Windows (...)

The European Commission has authorised the container liner shipping company Hapag-Lloyd to acquire one of its competitors, United Arab Shipping Company (UASC), on condition that UASC withdraws from the NEU1 consortium. Consortia, or alliances, are co-operative agreements between maritime (...)

After an in-depth investigation, the European Commission has conditionally authorised the telecommunications companies Hutchison and VimpelCom to merge their Italian subsidiaries H3G and WIND into a single joint venture. Both Hutchison and VimpelCom are active in the retail market for mobile (...)

Following an in-depth (Phase II) investigation, the European Commission has conditionally approved the purchase by the US conglomerate General Electric of the power generation activities of the French multinational Alstom, subject to conditions. The businesses divested by Alstom relate to (...)

This first roundtable of the “New frontiers of Antitrust” conference, Paris, 15 June 2015, was dedicated to the commitment decisions as « tool of choice or poison » for antitrust enforcement. After an introduction of Bruno Lasserre, President of the French Competition Authority describing the (...)

In his writings, Bill Kovacic has made the case for applying more widely Section 5 of the FTC Act in US antitrust enforcement, and in particular vis-à-vis dominant firms. Among other things, Bill advocates that Section 5 should be enforced independently of Section 2 of the Sherman Act and (...)

The European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union have clarified in two decisions the relationship between administrative competition proceedings and fundamental rights. The Strasbourg Court holds that an administrative authority, which is not an independent and (...)

In 2003 and 2004, the European Commission made a series of significant reforms both to Community competition law and DG Competition. The legislative reforms were accompanied by equally far-reaching internal reforms to the organisation and procedures within DG Competition. This set of three (...)