Bird & Bird (Brussels)

José Rivas

Bird & Bird (Brussels)
Partner

José Rivas is a partner with Bird & Bird based in Brussels. His practice covers all aspects of EU and competition law including in particular Articles 101 and 102, State aid and merger control and public procurement. He has extensive experience in representing leading U.S., Japanese and European clients across a broad range of industries, including aviation, media, telecommunications, energy and biotechnology. He has extensive litigation experience before the European Courts in Luxembourg - having represented clients in competition, trade and institutional EU law. He has represented clients under investigation and obtained phase I and phase II merger control clearance by the European Commission and other national competition authorities, and has filed complaints with such authorities. He also regularly organises anti-trust audits to help clients to identify any current or potential infringements of competition law and devised compliance programme to help prevent future infringements. Prior to joining Bird & Bird, José was head of a leading US firm’s Brussels office and co-head of the firm’s European competition group.

Distinctions

Linked authors

Bird & Bird (Helsinki)
Bird & Bird (Warsaw)
Bird & Bird (Rome)
Bird & Bird (Budapest)
Bird & Bird (Sydney)

Articles

9499 Bulletin

Ana Manzaneque, José Rivas, Chloe Birkett The EU Court of Justice dismisses two actions brought by an airline company against the Commission’s approval of State aid schemes supporting airlines holding national licences during the COVID-19 pandemic (Ryanair)

310

In May 2020, Ryanair brought two separate actions against the EC approval of a Swedish and a French State aid scheme supporting airlines holding national licences under Article 107(3)(b) TFEU and Article 107(2)(b) TFEU respectively. On 17 February 2021, the General Court dismissed Ryanair’s (...)

José Rivas, Candela Sotés Macaya The EU General Court registers a complaint by a major digital platform against the Commission for allowing a parallel investigation by the Italian Competition Authority to continue while there is already an ongoing European Economic Area investigation (Amazon)

482

This article has been nominated for the 2022 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. 1. The revolution of digital platforms Digital platforms have burst onto the market in recent years. There is no doubt that their ability to offer a large (...)

Pauline Van Sande, José Rivas The Belgian Competition Authority imposes an interim measure to temporarily suspend the joint venture between two of the three main telecom companies in the national market (Orange Belgium / Proximus)

144

On 8 January, the Belgian Competition Authority ("BCA") imposed an interim measure to temporarily suspend the joint venture ("JV") between Orange and Proximus, two of the three main telecom players in the Belgian market. The cooperation between Orange and Proximus relates to the sharing of (...)

Pauline Van Sande, José Rivas The Belgian Court of Appeal upholds the Competition Authority’s decision for imposing a fine over the exclusion of a company from the pharmaceutical sector (Order of Pharmacists)

147

In a judgment dated 8 January 2020, the Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Belgian Competition Authority ("BCA") in which it imposed a fine on the Order of Pharmacists for excluding Medi-Market from the market for pharmacy services (see July edition of Competitive Edge). The Court, (...)

Pauline Van Sande, José Rivas The Belgian Competition Authority fines €225,000 the national association of pharmacists for limiting the ability of pharmacists to advertise para pharmaceutical products online (Order of Pharmacists)

105

On 15 October 2019, the Belgian Competition Authority ("BCA") imposed a fine of EUR 225,000 on the national Order of Pharmacists for adopting, maintaining and implementing provisions of its Deontological Code that limit the ability of pharmacists to advertise para-pharmaceutical products, in (...)

José Rivas, Francine Cunningham The EU Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager backs her candidacy after a three-and-a-half-hour hearing in which she fielded questions on her plans to carry out her double role as the Commission’s Executive Vice-president and Competition Chief

88

Five years after winning the support of the European Parliament to become EU Competition Commissioner in the Juncker Commission, the Danish liberal politician Margrethe Vestager has done it again. MEPs backed her candidacy after a three-and-a-half hour hearing on 8th October during which she (...)

Pauline Van Sande, José Rivas The Belgian Competition Authority publishes a guide which sets out the principles of exchanging information between competitors and how it applies to associations of undertakings

96

On 1 October 2019, the Belgian Competition Authority published a Guide on the "Exchange of Information in the framework of Associations of Undertakings". The Guide sets out the main principles of exchanging information between competitors and how they apply to associations of undertakings, and (...)

Pauline Van Sande, José Rivas The EU General Court orders Luxembourg and Netherlands to recover millions of euros from two companies on the basis of State aid rules (Fiat / Starbucks)

91

On 24 September 2019, the General Court delivered its first two judgements in the series of appeals against European Commission (EC) decisions on tax rulings ordering Member States to recover millions of euros on the basis of state aid rules. In October 2015, the EC ruled that selective tax (...)

José Rivas, Pauline Van Sande, Hein Hobbelen The Belgian Competition Authority fines a pharmaceutical company for implementing anticompetitive practices aimed at excluding another association of pharmacies from the market (Order of Pharmacists)

85

The Belgian Competition Authority ("BCA") fined the national Order of Pharmacists EUR 1 million on 28 May 2019, for the use of anticompetitive practices aimed at excluding the Medi-Market Group, an association of (para)pharmacies, from the market for pharmacy services. Previously, the market (...)

José Rivas The EU Commission imposes a fine of €1.07 billion on five banks for participating in two foreign exchange spot trading cartels in the banking sector (Barclays / RBS / Citigroup / JPMorgan / MUFG)

108

On 16 May 2019, in two settlement decisions, the European Commission ("EC") has fined Barclays, RBS, Citigroup, JPMorgan and MUFG 1.07 billion EUR for participating in two foreign exchange spot trading cartels (see EC press release here). “Foreign exchange spot-trading activities are one of (...)

José Rivas, Pauline Van Sande, Hein Hobbelen The Belgian Federal Parliament adopts an Act reforming the competition law introducing technical legislative improvements such as streamlining procedures, formalising existing administrative practices and updating terminology

116

On 25 April 2019, the Belgian Federal Parliament adopted an Act reforming Belgian competition law (please note that the version of the Act adopted by the Parliament is not public yet and our analysis below is based on the fact that no amendments have been adopted to the version which was (...)

José Rivas, Pauline Van Sande, Hein Hobbelen The Belgian Parliament adopts a proposal amending the national competition law in order to include the concept of abuse of economic dependence

85

On 21 March 2019, the Belgian Parliament adopted a proposal amending Belgian competition law to include the concept of abuse of economic dependence in the toolbox of the Belgian Competition Authority (“BCA”) following the example of a number of other EU Member States. Under the new rules, it (...)

José Rivas, Pauline Van Sande, Hein Hobbelen The Belgian Competition Authority imposes interim measures in a public procurement procedure in the broadcasting transmission market (Norkring / Broadcast Partners)

122

This decision of 22 January 2019 is the next step in an eventful public procurement procedure and it confirms the preference of the Belgian Competition Authority ("BCA") to tackle cases via interim measures. Norkring has a service agreement to transmit the FM broadcasts of VRT that runs (...)

José Rivas The EU Court of Justice clarifies the notion of concerted practice and holds that a single meeting amongst competitors where they exchanged sensitive information can be caught by EU antitrust rules (T-Mobile Netherlands)

1471

Concerted practices, greyhounds, swans and alcoholmeters* Adam Smith wrote in the Wealth of Nations that “two greyhounds, in running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her towards his companion, or endeavours to intercept her when (...)

963 Review

Georgina Thorley (Eclair-Heath), José Rivas Striking the balance between public and private enforcement: The case for consensual compensation as a mitigating circumstance in setting fines for violations of EU competition law

963

The article examines the Commission’s proposal of 11 June 2013 for a directive on damages actions for infringements of EU competition law In particular, it examines the risk that, by ignoring the interaction between public and private enforcement, the proposal could lead to a situation of (...)

Books

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Author's ranking
221th
In number of contributions
833th
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5587th
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