Pauline Kuipers is an EU & competition law partner in the Hague and head of Bird & Bird’s International Competition & EU Group. Pauline specialises in EU and Dutch competition law with a particular focus on regulated markets like communications, media, life sciences. In competition law matters, she has experience in cartel procedures, abuse of dominance matters, merger notifications to the Dutch competition authority and European Commission as well as coordination of multiple merger filings, private enforcement actions, competition regulation of network industries as well as the media sector and competition rules on undertakings granted special or exclusive rights by the state. Her practice also includes public procurement law and assistance in regulatory investigations (telecoms, post, consumer law, energy). Pauline’s previous experience in Intellectual Property law has brought her specific expertise to advise in matters on the verge between competition law and intellectual property, such as licensing arrangements and other technology transfer agreements, standardization discussions, refusal to license, abuse of IP rights etc.
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Introduction The Court of Appeal of Amsterdam (Gerechtshof Amsterdam) ruled that Dutch collective rights management organisations ‘Buma’ and ‘Stemra’ abused their (joint) dominant position by applying unequal conditions in relation to business licensing of music for use in cafés, (...)
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Summary On 31 March 2022, the Rotterdam District Court ruled on an appeal lodged by T-Mobile Netherlands against a merger clearance decision by the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) of 12 May 2021 that KPN and APG did not require a licence for the creation of a concentration (...)
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Dutch ACM fines Samsung almost € 40 million for resale price maintenance* The Dutch competition authority ACM fined Samsung Electronics Benelux B.V. (“Samsung”) € 39,875,500 for coordinating the retail prices of Samsung television sets together with various retailers. The alleged coordination (...)
368
Dutch competition authority ACM imposes EUR 20 million fine on orphan drug manufacturer Leadiant for excessive pricing* The Netherlands Authority for the Consumer and Markets’ (“ACM“) announced focus on drug price developments has finally come to a tangible enforcement result: a fine of (...)
546
On 9 July 2021, the European Commission published its long-awaited drafts of the updated Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (“VBER”) and the accompanying Guidelines. The drafts are the result of an in-depth evaluation process that started in October 2018. The evaluation showed that many (...)
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Introduction Following a comprehensive evaluation process which began in 2018, the EU Commission published on 9 July 2021 its long-awaited draft vertical agreement block exemption regulation (Draft VBER) and accompanying guidelines (Draft Guidelines). The current VBER and Guidelines, which (...)
226
The Dutch competition authority (ACM) has decided to close its investigation into payment apps’ access to Apple’s Near-Field Communication (NFC) antenna. The ACM concludes that the EU Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) does not provide a legal basis for its investigation. As Bird & Bird (...)
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Summary On 23 June 2021, the District Court of Rotterdam (“District Court”) held that a so-called special purpose vehicle, was eligible as a claimant for part of the cartel damages it had claimed. The claimant Stichting Elevator Cartel Claim (“SECC”), represented many customers who had (...)
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Competition law contains wide-ranging prohibitions against anticompetitive issues when companies enter into agreements with either competitors, suppliers or distributors. The content of the prohibitions has developed in 60+ years of case law and is backed up by competition authorities having the authority to carry out intrusive investigations and imposing fines. Navigating these prohibitions can sometimes be difficult and involve substantial assessment and judgment calls. It is up to companies to self-assess their agreements to ensure compliance. Block exemption regulations (or in short ‘block exemptions’) are amongst the most used EU antitrust tools in day to day operations for competition law advisors, both in private practice and in companies. Block exemptions play an important role in ensuring inter alia consistency and legal certainty in (self) assessing a range of common commercial actions when dealing with e.g. competitors, suppliers and distributors. Without block exemptions, it would be much more complex for companies to assess, whether many of their commonly occurring activities entail any risk of constituting infringements of competition law.
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On 25 May 2021, the Dutch Consumer & Market Authority (“ACM”) published its behavioural study into the compliance programmes and compliance culture at four companies in regulated industries which are under supervision of the ACM. In the study, the ACM not only examined whether everything (...)
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Dutch regulator calls for tighter regulation of Big Techs in payment market study On 1 December 2020, the Dutch competition authority (ACM) published its long-awaited report on the role of major technology firms (Big Techs) in the payment market. The publication of the report was expected in (...)
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Main points discussed in this article: Sustainability is one of the highest priorities of our times. Sustainability goals can only be achieved on time when companies will have more leeway to cooperate. Competition rules sometimes appear to present a barrier for much needed cooperation and (...)
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On 26 May 2020, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal (“Court”) delivered its judgment in a dispute between the real estate association VBO Makelaars (“VBO”) versus the Dutch Association of Real Estate Agents (“NVM”) over the online real estate platform of Funda Real Estate (“Funda”). The Court (...)
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On 10 April 2020, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers & Markets (“ACM”) unconditionally cleared the acquisition of publishing company Sanoma Media Netherlands (“Sanoma”) by DPG Media (“DPG”) and concluded that no in-depth phase 2 merger control investigation was required as sufficient (...)
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On 17 March 2020, the Dutch Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal (“CBb”) reversed the 2018 decision of the Authority for Consumers and Markets (“ACM”) requiring telecom providers KPN and VodafoneZiggo to open up their fixed networks in the Netherlands to other providers. In September 2018, (...)
354
On 3 March 2020, the Danish Maritime and Commercial Court found a medicine distributor, CD Pharma AB, guilty of having abused its dominant position back in 2014. Due to its dominant position, the undertaking in question had a special responsibility not to harm competition – a responsibility (...)
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On 18 February 2020 the Dutch Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal (“CBb”) ruled that a company may still have an interest in bringing proceedings against a cartel infringement decision even if no fine is imposed on it and even if it is not the direct addressee of the infringement decision. In (...)
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On 4 February 2020, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal (“Court of Appeal”) ruled that cartel damage claims that were filed by claim vehicle CDC against Kemira were not time-barred under Spanish, Finnish and Swedish law. The Court of Appeal also dismissed Kemira’s challenge to the way in which the (...)
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On 10 December 2019 , the Authority for Consumers & Markets ("ACM") imposed a fine of € 1,84 million on a company for the failure to comply with the duty to cooperate as laid down in Article 5:20(1) of the Dutch General Administrative Law Act ("GALA"). ACM found that during an on-site (...)
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On 28 November 2019 the highest administrative court in The Netherlands (het College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven, "CBb") issued its final judgment in the flour cartel case. CBb has previously on 19 March 2019 issued an interlocutory ruling in this case. The Dutch competition authority (...)
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On 26 November 2019 the Court of Appeal of Arnhem ("Court of Appeal") applied the EU competition law notion of an ‘undertaking’ in a cartel damage claim procedure between TenneT and entities belonging to the Alstom group of companies. The Court of Appeal ruled that one of these entities (...)
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On 23 October 2019, the District Court of Rotterdam ("District Court") rendered an interim judgement on a private enforcement cartel claim against Kone and ThyssenKrupp. The private enforcement claim follows fines imposed by the European Commission back in 2007 for a lifts and (...)
561
Dutch competition authority ACM publishes a sector report on the impact of biosimilars on competition between TNF-alfa inhibitors* The Dutch competition authority, ACM, initiated a market study in 2018 into the effect of the introduction of biosimilars on the competition between TNF alfa (...)
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In February of this year, PostNL announced its intention to acquire rival operator Sandd. In view of the rapidly declining postal volumes, the two operators consider the combination of their nationwide postal networks necessary to ensure continuity and affordability of postal services. On (...)
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On 24 September 2019 the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) published its report on the 2018 initiated market study about the effects the introduction of biosimilars had on competition between TNF alfa inhibitors on the Dutch market. ACM did not establish violations of (...)
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In May 2019 the Dutch State Secretary of Economic Affairs & Climate (’Ministry’) stated that she will plead in Europe for a new competence in European competition enforcement to keep digital markets accessible. One of her suggestions is to enable the competition authority to intervene in (...)
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The growth of e-commerce over the last decade has had a significant impact on the market. Trends like the increased importance of online sales and the emergence of new market players such as online platforms significantly affected the distribution and pricing strategies of both manufacturers (...)
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On 4 July 2019, a legislative proposal (’Wet ruimte voor duurzaamheidsinitiativen’, parliamentary document 2018-2019, 35247, no. 2) was submitted to the Dutch House of Representatives which aims to foster private collaboration towards sustainability goals by preventing sustainability (...)
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On 27 June 2019 the District Court of Rotterdam annulled the decision of the Authority for Consumers and Markets ("ACM", the Dutch competition authority) to impose a fine of € 41 million on Dutch rail transport incumbent N.V. Nederlandse Spoorwegen ("NS") for abusing its dominant position (...)
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On 7 May 2019, the The Hague Court of Appeal ("Court of Appeal") ruled against electronics company Asus in a patent dispute with electronics company Philips. The Court of Appeal found that Philips’ patent was valid and had been infringed by Asus. The manufacturer had argued that Philips abused (...)
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On 11 April 2019 the Dutch competition authority ("ACM") published its findings on the ACM market study into mobile app stores ("Market Study"). ACM conducted the Market Study in order to gain more insight into how app providers are able to offer their apps in app stores and what influence (...)
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On 19 March 2019 the highest administrative court in the Netherlands (het College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven, "CBb") ruled that private equity investors could be held liable for cartel infringements committed by their portfolio companies. In this case the Dutch Competition Authority (...)
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On 26 February 2019, the Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets ("ACM") published both new (horizontal) guidelines on cooperation between competitors (Leidraad: samenwerking tussen concurrenten "Horizontal restraints guidelines") and (vertical) guidelines on agreements between suppliers (...)
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On 21 December 2018, the Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets (“ACM”) published guidelines on its simplified settlement procedure (“Settlement Guidelines”). This procedure may be followed if the ACM intends to impose a fine and the undertaking or person involved is prepared to admit to (...)
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Competition Case Law Digest 5th Edition - A Synthesis of US, EU and National Leading Cases
