Jürgen Beninca counsels European and U.S. corporate clients on antitrust regulatory compliance and represents businesses before cartel authorities — including the German Federal Cartel Office and the European Commission — and before courts in antitrust matters. Antitrust follow-on litigation cases constitute an important part of his practice. In addition to his antitrust practice, he assists clients in internal investigations and guides clients through the screening process of foreign direct investments into Germany under Germany’s Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (AWV). Jürgen’s experience includes winning merger control approvals from the German Federal Cartel Office and the European Commission in a variety of industrial sectors, including the automotive, banking, paper, pharmaceutical, and chemical industries. He also has been involved in various international, European, and national antitrust investigations in the banking, cement, automotive, insurance, and industrial minerals industries. His regulatory practice focuses on cartel and distribution cases and abuses of a dominant position.
215
In Short The Situation: The European Commission ("EC") issued its first decision ("Decision") regarding the intersection of EU merger control rules and the recent growth in national Foreign Direct Investment ("FDI") regimes. The EC found that the Hungarian government’s decision to block a (...)
305
The EU General Court ("GC") annulled the European Commission’s €1.06 billion antitrust fine imposed on Intel in 2009 for allegedly abusing its dominant position in x86 Central Processing Units ("CPUs") by offering loyalty rebates to customers, excluding competitors such as AMD. The GC held that (...)
179
In Short The Situation: For a second time, the Second Circuit reversed on international comity grounds, due to a conflict between U.S. and Chinese law, a $148 million price-fixing judgment against two Chinese exporters of Vitamin C. The Result: Although arising in the antitrust context, (...)
242
In Short The Background: The European Commission ("Commission") recently unveiled long-awaited draft revisions to its Vertical Block Exemption Regulation ("VBER") and Vertical Guidelines. The VBER includes safe harbors that exempt some agreements in the vertical supply chain from antitrust (...)
193
The 17th amendment to the German Foreign Trade and Payment Ordinance ("AWV") adopted by the federal government on April 27, 2021, included—compared to the original draft—a number of changes relevant to M&A transactions with a nexus to Germany. A draft 17th amendment to the AWV was published (...)
138
In Short The Development: The Bundestag, the German legislature, amended Germany’s antitrust laws to include special competition rules for digital platform "companies with overwhelming importance for competition across multiple markets." The amendments, known as the GWB Digitization Act or ARC (...)
220
On May 20, 2020, the German Federal government adopted the 15th amendment to the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (AWV). The changes to the AWV will be effective shortly, after publication in the Federal Gazette. Prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the amendment expands the scope of (...)
25
In Short The Situation: The French government issued on December 31, 2019, new rules substantially revising the French Foreign Direct Investments ("FDI") regulation. These new provisions mostly implement the recent PACTE law and the new EU FDI regulation which set up an EU screening mechanism. (...)
299
On 21 March 2019, Regulation (EU) 2019/452 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 March 2019 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union (“FDI Regulation”) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union. The FDI Regulation (...)
397
This article has been nominated for the 2019 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. _ The Situation: Market-dominant and powerful companies in Germany are subject to a number of rules that are significantly broader and stricter than the European (...)
555
What happened? The European Court of Justice ("ECJ") set aside a General Court ruling that had upheld a €1.06 billion fine imposed by the European Commission on Intel for abusing its dominant position in the market for x86 central processing units ("CPUs"). Background In its 2009 decision, (...)
552
Key changes triggered by the amendment relate to a company’s liability for cartel infringements, the introduction of a transaction value test into merger control, private enforcement through the implementation of the EU Cartel Damages Directive, the assessment of market power in multilateral (...)
19 avenue Jean Aicard
75011 Paris, France
106 West 32nd Street, Suite 149
New York, NY, 10001, USA
563 Chiswick High Road
W4 3AY London, UK
