Giovanni Pregno is an associate with Van Bael & Bellis based in their Brussels office. He focuses on Italian and EU competition law as well as EU trade law. Prior to joining Van Bael & Bellis, Giovanni worked as an associate in an Italian law firm where he practised competition and consumer protection law.
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On 8 August 2023, the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (“CAT”) delivered its judgment upholding the decision by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) against pharmaceutical company Advanz Pharma and its former owners Hg and Cinven (jointly, “Advanz”) for excessive pricing (see VBB on (...)
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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 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 15 May 2023, the Court of Milan delivered a judgment awarding damages in the context of a private enforcement action. The case constitutes a rare combination of a follow-on action based on a decision of the European Commission (“Commission”) of 2010 establishing a pan-European cartel in the (...)
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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 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 19 January 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“ECJ”) delivered its judgment in the Unilever case (Case C-680/20) concerning the allegedly exclusionary strategy implemented by Unilever in Italy and consisting of the imposition by Unilever’s distributors of exclusivity clauses (...)
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On 9 January 2023, the Italian highest administrative court (Consiglio di Stato, “COS”), emphatically confirmed that the Italian President of the Council of Ministers (informally also referred to as Prime Minister) enjoys a very wide margin of discretion in the application of the national (...)
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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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As we have previously reported (Van Bael & Bellis Life Sciences News and Insights, 15 September 2022), on 13 September 2022, the Swiss Competition Authority carried out an inspection at the premises of Novartis Pharma AG ( Novartis ). In parallel, Novartis received a request for (...)
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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 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 24 March 2022, an Italian administrative court (“TAR Lazio” or “court”) annulled the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) decision imposing a fine of €10.8 million on several companies belonging to the music ticketing and marketing group CTS Eventim-TicketOne (“TicketOne”) for abuse of its (...)
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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 16 November 2021, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) imposed a fine of € 68.7 million on Amazon and € 134.5 million on Apple for infringing Article 101 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”) with regard to the distribution of Apple products over Amazon Marketplace (...)
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Foreign Direct Investment: Recent Developments at European Union, United Kingdom and EU Member State Level EUROPEAN UNION LEVEL European Commission proposes updated list of projects and programmes of EU interest annexed to FDI Screening Regulation On 29 September 2021, the European (...)
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On 18 June 2021, the Court of Appeal of Milan issued a judgment in a damages action initiated against telecommunications provider Vodafone. This case stemmed from an investigation carried out by the Italian competition authority (“ICA”) into an abusive margin squeeze by Vodafone on the market (...)
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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 23 March 2021, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) submitted to the Italian Government a set of proposals to modify the Italian Competition Act (the “Proposal”). The Proposal concerns a wide range of areas, including the digital sector, certain network industries (e.g., port services (...)
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On 22 March 2021, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) published the indexed thresholds triggering the merger notification obligation in Italy. By law, the ICA is required to update these thresholds on a yearly basis. Following an increase in the GDP deflator index, transactions must be (...)
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On 22 December 2020, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) cleared the incumbent postal firm Poste Italiane’s (“PI”) acquisition of the sole control over its main rival Nexive Group (“Nexive”). The ICA did not apply the usual merger control rules in this case, but rather cleared the (...)
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On 22 December 2020, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) imposed a fine of around € 10.8 million on several companies belonging to the ticketing and marketing for music company, CTS Eventim-TicketOne group (“TicketOne”) for abuse of its dominant position on the Italian market for the (...)
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On 27 October 2020, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) imposed a fine of around € 27.4 million on COREPLA (the “Consortium for the collection, recycling and recovery of plastic packaging waste”) for abusing its dominant position on the national market for services for PET packaging (...)
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On 6 October 2020, the Italian Supreme Administrative Court (Consiglio di Stato) ruled on the appeals lodged by the Italian Competition Authority and seven companies in relation to a big-rigging cartel case in the auditing and consulting sector, confirming the Competition Authority’s initial (...)
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On 15 September 2020, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) imposed a € 153,000 fine on three companies, Acea, Mediterranea Energia and Alma C.I.S., for failing to notify a transaction before closing. The three acquiring companies had purchased one target, Pescara Distribuzione Gas, in (...)
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On 24 November 2020, the Italian Regional Administrative Court for Lazio (“IRAC”) annulled a decision issued by the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) in the automotive financial services cartel case in which a total fine of € 678 million was imposed (“Decision”). On 20 December 2019, the (...)
