Johan Van Acker is a partner in the competition law team of Van Bael & Bellis, one of the leading firms in EU competition law. Johan is a Belgian-qualified lawyer who specialises in EU and Belgian competition law, with a particular focus on merger control. He has been involved in a number of the firm’s most significant merger cases over the past decade, including the opposition to BHP Billiton’s tie-up with Rio Tinto and Microsoft’s acquistion of Skype. For both deals, the Van Bael & Bellis team received merger control matter of the year awards from Global Competition Review. Johan also regularly advises clients on other aspects of competition law, such as cartels, abuse of dominant market position and state aid. Johan contributed to Competition Law of the European Community, Van Bael & Bellis (2009) and co-authored the European Union chapter of Merger Control, Jurisdictional Comparisons, The European Lawyer Reference (2011) and The current state of the EU merger control system: ten areas where improvement could be made, a paper presented at the 2011 Fordham International Anti-trust Law & Policy conference. He also wrote the Belgian merger control chapter of Wet en Duiding, Mededingingsrecht (2013), a commentary (in Dutch) on Belgian and EU competition law legislation. He holds an LL.M European Law from King’s College London and a Master’s degree in Law the Universities of Antwerp (Belgium) and Nice (France).
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On 13 December 2013, the Belgian Council of Ministers approved two draft Bills that introduce the possibility of collective redress proceedings – so-called class action claims – to recover damages suffered as a result of a breach of Belgian competition law (as well as other kinds of (...)
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In a judgment of 27 September 2013, the Brussels Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Belgian Competition Council imposing a fine of € 245,530 on Presstalis for operating an abusive rebate scheme. Presstalis, previously known as Nouvelles Messageries de la Presse Parisienne, is a French (...)
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On 12 July 2013, the Swedish Competition Authority (SCA) announced that it has submitted an application to the Stockholm City Court requesting the prohibition of a planned acquisition of locksmiths company Prokey AB by Assa Abloy AB. Prokey is one of two companies active in the wholesale (...)
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On 19 June 2013, the European Commission announced that it had imposed a fine of € 93.8 million on Danish pharmaceutical group Lundbeck and fines totalling € 52.2 million on several generic medicines producers over their conclusion of so-called “pay-for-delay” agreements intended to hinder the (...)
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On 14 June 2013, the European Commission unconditionally approved the acquisition of ruggedized mobile computer supplier Intermec by technology manufacturing conglomerate Honeywell. The Commission’s focus was on the parties’ production of ruggedized mobile computers, barcode scanners, (...)
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On 27 March 2013, the European Commission opened a consultation on proposed revisions to its Notice on Simplified Procedure and Merger Implementing Regulation. The proposed amendments are intended to increase the number of transactions that can benefit from the so-called “simplified (...)
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On 26 March 2013, the Brussels Court of Appeal annulled three decisions of the President of the Competition Council who had extended the preliminary measures requiring leading diamond supplier De Beers to continue supplying rough diamonds to Belgian diamond trader Spira. The Brussels (...)
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On 5 March 2013, the Brussels Court of Appeal delivered a landmark judgment finding that in-house lawyers’ communications benefit from the so-called “legal professional privilege”, i.e. they are protected by the confidentiality of communications between lawyers and their clients. The Court’s (...)
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In a judgment of 26 February 2013, the German Regional Court of Cologne rejected an action for damages in the amount of more than € 1.1 billion by Danish hearing-aid manufacturer GN Store Nord A/S against the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO). GN Store sought compensation from the FCO for (...)
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According to a press release of 15 January 2013, the German Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) has imposed a fine of € 90,000 on Clemens Tönnies, the majority shareholder of Tönnies Holding GmbH & Co. KG (“Tönnies Holding”), for the non-disclosure in a merger notification of Mr Tönnies’ personal (...)
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At the end of December 2012, the Portuguese Competition Authority fined the Portuguese National Pharmacy Association and two subsidiaries of Portuguese company Farminveste € 150,000 for implementing their acquisition of pharmaceutical company ParaRede-Glintt without obtaining prior merger (...)
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On 15 October 2012, the College of Competition Prosecutors requested the European Commission to take over the analysis of the proposed acquisition by Canon Europe of the I.R.I.S. Group. Canon Europe is active in a wide array of sectors involving consumer and Professional imaging and (...)
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On 27 September 2012, the Competition Council annulled a decision of the College of Competition Prosecutors not to pursue a complaint on the basis of the enforcement priority policy. The Competition Council held that the decision was not sufficiently reasoned. On 19 December 2011, the (...)
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In a judgment of 29 May 2012, the Brussels Court of Appeal held that AMP, a distribution company delivering and collecting newspapers and magazines for retail shops, had abused its dominant position by increasing the fixed minimum fee for its services without any economic justification. (...)
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On 11 October 2011, the Brussels Court of Appeal (Hof van Beroep/Cour d’Appel) gave an interlocutory judgment designating a panel of experts in a case pitting NMBS/SNCB, the national railway company, against Electrabel. The appeal judgment overturns the initial judgment of the Court of (...)
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