Argyris Papaefthymiou is an associate at Linklaters, London. His work focuses on EU and Greek competition law, including cartel and abuse of dominance investigations, merger control, horizontal and vertical agreements, and state aid. He has a dual background in law and economics, and regularly advises on behavioural and transactional competition law matters involving complex economic assessments. Prior to joining our firm, Argyris worked on EU competition law matters with a Greek-based and two Brussels-based law firms. He has also worked on state aid matters at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition. Argyris is admitted before the Court of First Instance and the Athens Bar.
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On 18 November 2021, the European Commission (hereinafter the “Commission”) published a Communication on “A competition policy fit for new challenges” (hereinafter the “Communication”). The Communication provides an illustrative consolidation of the current work streams – both at the (...)
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By its renvoi judgement of 23 September 2020, the General Court upheld the 2013 European Commission decision which found that the Spanish tax lease scheme (“the STL system”) allowing shipping companies to benefit from rebates of up to 30% on the price of vessels built by Spanish shipyards (...)
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On 22 September 2020, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that EU governments may be allowed to grant more State aid to projects that help the bloc achieve its climate goals, calling such an incentive a “green bonus”. In contrast, polluting factories or power plants may be (...)
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On 21 September 2020, the European Commission adopted revised EU Emission Trading System (ETS) State aid Guidelines in the context of the system for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading post-2021, which will enter into force from 1 January 2021. The revised Guidelines went through a (...)
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On 11 September 2020, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager announced during the International Bar Association’s 24th Annual Competition Conference, that the Commission intends to change its approach towards referrals to the EU from national competition authorities. Commissioner Vestager (...)
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On 15 June 2020, Google notified the Commission its intention to acquire Fitbit. A month later, it submitted commitments to address the Commission’s concerns that the proposed transaction would further entrench Google’s market position in the online advertising markets by increasing the (...)
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On 16 July 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “ECJ”) delivered a judgment dismissing the appeal by Nexans France and its parent company Nexans (together “Nexans”) against the judgment of the General Court of the European Union (the “GC”) in the Power Cables cartel case. By (...)
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On 16 July 2020, the European Commission (“Commission”) launched an antitrust sector inquiry into the market for the Internet of Things (IoT) for consumer-related products and services in the EU. According to the Commission, the sector inquiry will focus on consumer-related products and (...)
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On 16 July 2020, the European Commission launched an antitrust sector inquiry into the market for Internet of Things (IoT) for consumer-related products and services in the EU. The Commission’s inquiry will focus on such products and services that are connected to a network and can be (...)
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On 14 July 2020 the European Commission started a market test inviting comments from interested parties on commitments offered by Aspen Pharmacare Holdings. The Commission had opened an investigation in May 2017 over concerns that Aspen had abused its dominant position in a range of national (...)
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On 1 July 2020, the German Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) published the final report on the sector inquiry on smart TVs which revealed serious transparency shortcomings in the privacy policies of all major market players in Germany. The FCO concluded that almost all smart TV manufacturers (...)
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On 1 July 2020, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) published its final report on its year-long market study into online platforms and the digital advertising market in the UK. The CMA found that existing competition law tools are not suitable for ensuring effective competition (...)
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On 30 June 2020, the European Commission announced that it has launched a process to ensure that the EU competition rules do not stand in the way of collective bargaining for the self-employed. Even though collective bargaining with employees falls outside the scope of EU competition rules, (...)
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On 26 June 2020 the European Commission published a public consultation regarding the revision of the Market Definition Notice used in EU competition law, inviting stakeholders from the public and private sector (including, undertakings and consumer associations, national competition (...)
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On June 17, 2020, the European Commission published a White Paper on the regulation of foreign subsidies, aiming to fortify the level playing field within the Single Market by dealing with the distortive effects caused by foreign subsidies. The White Paper, a long-awaited and well-received (...)
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On 2 June 2020, the European Commission announced the launch of a public consultation and published an Inception Impact Assessment on an envisaged “New Competition Tool”, which would effectively amount to the Commission acquiring market investigation powers, akin to the ones already held by (...)
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On 28 May 2020, the EU General Court issued a ruling annulling the European Commission’s decision prohibiting the proposed acquisition of Telefónica UK by Hutchison 3G UK. The Commission had examined this transaction as a “four-to-three” merger and had blocked it in 2016, in line with its (...)
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On 28 May 2020, the European Commission waived in their entirety the structural remedies that had been submitted by Takeda in 2018 to have its acquisition of Shire greenlit. The Commission’s market investigation with regard to Takeda’s waiver request revealed a number of permanent, significant (...)
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On 2 April 2020, the Court of Justice of the EU delivered its judgment in Budapest Bank on a reference for a preliminary ruling from Hungary’s highest court relating to agreements on fixed multilateral interchange fees (MIFs). In this much-anticipated ruling, the Court of Justice further (...)
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On 25 March 2020, the European Commission issued Guidance concerning foreign direct investment and free movement of capital from third countries, and the protection of Europe’s strategic assets, ahead of the application of Regulation (EU) 2019/452 (the “FDI Screening Regulation”) in October (...)
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On 24 March 2020, the European Commission published a final Regulation extending the EU Consortia Block Exemption Regulation (CBER) until 25 April 2024, without modification. This Regulation outlines the conditions under which liner shipping consortia can provide joint services without (...)
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As part of its policy reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, the European Commission has mobilised two instruments to assist Member States in dealing with the crisis: Article 107(2)(b) TFEU allowing for State aid to compensate damages caused by exceptional occurrences, and Article 107(3)(b) TFEU (...)
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On 4 March 2020 the Court of Justice of the EU delivered its judgement with which it dismissed Marine Harvest’s appeal against the Commission’s decision imposing two separate fines (EUR10 million each) for failure to notify a transaction under Article 4(1) EUMR and for implementing that (...)
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On 30 January 2020, the Court of Justice of the EU rendered its preliminary ruling in Case C-307/18 – Generics (UK) and Others v CMA (Paroxetine). The case originated in a preliminary reference made by the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) relating to an appeal against a decision of the UK (...)
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Recent judgements by Court of Justice of the EU provide important clarifications regarding the European Commission’s powers and obligations when conducting dawn raids. On 30 January 2020, the Court of Justice handed down a judgment dismissing two appeals by České dráhy, a.s. against General (...)
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On 30 January 2020, the European Commission fined NBCUniversal EUR14,3 million for restricting intellectual property licensees from selling licensed merchandise within the EEA to territories and customers beyond those allocated to them. The Commission found that for over six and a half years, (...)
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On 31 January 2020, the UK formally exited the European Union, following the conclusion of a Withdrawal Agreement between the two. A transition period is in force from 1 February 2020 to 31 December 2020 (subject to extension), during which EU competition law (and EU law in general) will (...)
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On 24 September 2019, the General Court delivered its judgments in the first two individual tax ruling cases involving transfer pricing within multinationals, providing important guidance on the application of the arm’s length principle in the context of State aid investigations concerning tax (...)
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On 20 September 2020 the European Commission published its long-awaited 327-page explanation of its decision to fine Google €4.34 billion for illegal practices regarding Android mobile devices. The text provides a detailed analysis of some of the most interesting aspects of the decision, (...)
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On 9 July 2019, the Commission fined Sanrio, a Japanese company that designs, produces and sells “Hello Kitty” products, EUR6.2 million for breaching Article 101 TFEU by imposing territorial restrictions on cross-border and online sales of merchandising products featuring Hello Kitty and other (...)
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On 18 July 2019, the European Commission fined Qualcomm for abusing its market dominance through predatory pricing. The Commission found that between 2009 and 2011 Qualcomm sold its baseband chipsets below cost to two strategic customers in order to exclude from the market Icera, a new entrant (...)
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On 17 July 2019, the European Commission opened a formal investigation to examine whether Amazon’s use of sensitive data from independent retailers selling on the platform infringes EU competition rules. Amazon’s dual role, i.e. as a retailer selling on the platform and as the provider of the (...)
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On 27 June 2019, the European Commission fined Canon EUR28 million for the pre-clearance implementation of its acquisition of Toshiba Medical Systems (TMSC) through the use of a two-step “warehousing” deal structure. In step one, Toshiba transferred 95% of the shares in TMSC in a SPV (...)
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On 18 June 2019, the General Court of the European Union handed down its long-awaited judgment in the Micula case ruling that Romania’s payment of the €178 million award constituted illegal State aid. Romania, prior to its EU accession in 2005, implemented a pack of measures aiming to avoid (...)
