Hein Hobbelen is a partner at Bird & Bird’s Competition and EU practice, dividing his time between Brussels and The Hague. With over 20 years’ experience, he is a well-known practitioner for all key pillars of EU competition, trade and sector-specific laws. His experience in competition, trade and TMT law spans a period of more than 20 years. He has extensive experience in dealing with the European Commission, the Dutch and Belgian Competition Authorities and other regulators. He combines this with a number of academic activities in Leuven, Tilburg and Florence. He is working across a wide range of sectors including technology and communications, media and entertainment, pharmaceuticals, paper, energy (infrastructure), chemicals and many others. He is honoured to co-head our firm’s Brussels Tech & Comms and Media, Entertainment & Sports sector groups. He speaks Dutch, English, French, Italian and German.
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In February 2021, Proximus, Belgium’s incumbent telecom provider, started prenotification talks with the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA) with a view to taking over Mobile Vikings, a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which previously formed part of the DPG group. As part of its (...)
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The interest of National Competition Authorities (“NCAs”) in playing a prominent role in the enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) is not new. Back in May 2021, the German, French and Dutch competition authorities published a “non-paper” entitled “Friends of an effective Digital (...)
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On 10 March 2021, the Belgian Competition Authority (“BCA”) published its Priority Policy Note for the year ahead (available in French and Dutch). Impact of COVID-19 The BCA acknowledges that 2021 will be a year of recovery following the negative impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the (...)
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On 22 May 2020 the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA) published three new guidelines: (i) new guidelines regarding the informal opinions of the BCA’s President; (ii) new guidelines regarding the calculation of fines; and (iii) new leniency guidelines. Below we set out the most important (...)
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On 26 February 2020, the Belgian Competition Authority (“BCA”) published its annual enforcement priorities, which are largely similar to those of 2019: Telecommunications - the BCA notes that the increased reliance on bundled offers in the telecom retail markets has the effect of increasing (...)
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At the beginning of the year, the Belgian Competition Authority ("BCA") started a second phase investigation into the acquisition of Ceres NV by Dossche Mills, two companies active in the sector of production and sales of soft wheat flour for human consumption. The main issue concerned the (...)
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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 (...)
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On 13 May 2019 the Belgian Competition Authority ("BCA") conditionally approved Telenet’s acquisition of sole control over De Vijver Media, after a referral by the European Commission ("EC"). The deal was originally notified to the EC on 4 October 2018. The EC already investigated Telenet’s (...)
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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 (...)
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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 (...)
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On 1 March 2019, the Belgian Competition Authority (“BCA”) published its annual enforcement priorities, which are largely similar to those of 2018: Telecommunications – the BCA notes that the increased reliance on bundled offers in the telecom retail markets has the effect of increasing (...)
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On 29 January 2019, the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA) imposed a €98,000 fine on HM Products, a wholesale distributor of infrared cabins, for imposing maximum rebates on its retailers. The BCA found that HM Products only admitted retailers to its distribution network if they accepted to (...)
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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 (...)
