Barbara Monti is an associate in the antitrust and EU competition team in Brussels and advises clients on all aspects of European and French/Belgian competition law from a broad range of sectors. Her practice focuses on the technology, internet, consumer brands, and energy sectors including renewable energy, market manipulation, and abuse of dominant position. She regularly counsels on vertical agreements and merger control. Her previous experience allowed Ms. Monti to gain a significant knowledge of the French Competition Authority and compliance program.
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Back in 2020, the French Competition Authority (“FCA”) had announced, in its annual priorities, its interest in the competition implications of the digital revolution in the financial sector, notably in the context of the growth of FinTech, the introduction of blockchain technology and the (...)
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The French Competition Authority (“FCA”) prohibited the proposed acquisition of the hypermarket retailer Géant Casino by its competitor E.Leclerc in the French city of Troyes. It found that the transaction would create a duopoly between the two remaining hypermarkets, Carrefour and E.Leclerc, (...)
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At a time when COVID-19 is having direct and indirect effects on the reduction of greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions and ensuing global warming, eight French regulators, including the French Competition Authority, issued on 5 May 2020 a joint working paper in which they highlight the need to take (...)
95
The questions raised by the jurisdiction of national courts to hear actions for damages for anti-competitive practices continue to give rise to abundant case law, which nevertheless tends towards greater clarification as to the fate of litigants (see CJEU, 21 May 2015, Cartel Damage Claims (...)
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The present case once again calls into question the effectiveness of the judicial remedy, particularly in France, available to undertakings which have been the subject of inspections carried out by the European Commission with the assistance of the national competition authority of a Member (...)
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After three particularly developed judgments, the Court of First Instance returned to the Commission’s powers of inspection, the degree of formalism expected in relation to the evidence on which an inspection decision is based, and the protection of the material seized and the data copied under (...)
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Ten years of proceedings is how long it took to foresee the closure of this case, which allows the Commission to reconsider its powers to reject complaints where, under Article 13(2) of Regulation 1/2003, a complaint is ’already being dealt with by another competition authority’. It all began in (...)
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It took 18 years for the European Commission to issue provisional measures on the basis of Article 8 of Regulation No 1/2003. Indeed, the last time the Commission imposed interim measures was in 2001 in the IMS Health case (EC Commission, press release IP/01/941 of 3 July 2001, The Commission (...)
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On 24 September 2019, the Court of First Instance of the European Union made an order dismissing as inadmissible the action brought by a non-profit-making public body, by reference to the Montessori case-law (CJEU, 6 Nov. 2018, Scuola Elementare Maria Montessori, cases C-622/16 P to C-624/16 P, (...)
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Each request for reparation has its own specificity. Here, the absence of a direct contractual link between the victim undertaking and the defendant undertaking allows the Court of Justice of the European Union once again to consider the concept of the ’place where the harmful event occurred or (...)
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Judgments recalling the European Commission’s obligation to state reasons in competition matters are legion. One recalls in particular the recent UPS judgment, in which the Court confirmed the annulment of the Commission’s decision prohibiting a merger on the grounds that the parties had not been (...)
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At the beginning of this preliminary ruling case, a Polish company was sanctioned by the national competition authority for having abused its dominant position on the market for group life insurance, both under national law for the period 2001-2007 and under EU competition rules, but only for (...)
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In the present case, the Court of First Instance was criticised for dismissing as inadmissible the action brought against a corrective decision, even though the Commission had omitted in its initial decision information concerning the determination of the basic amount of the fine to be imposed (...)
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Digitisation does not only affect companies. On 19 March 2019, the Commission announced a new secure online tool called eLeniency, which is supposed to guarantee both confidentiality and legal protection, similar to the current oral procedure. Be careful not to mislead, the tool is used in (...)
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In the field of mergers, there have been few judgments annulling Commission decisions based on violation of the rights of defence. The latest was in 2002, when the Court of First Instance ruled that the lack of clarity and precision of certain Commission objections infringed the rights of (...)
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The judgments of the ECJ under chronicle bring to a close the judicial saga dating back to February 2006, when the companies of the Gascogne group, Kendrion, ASPLA and Armando Álvarez brought an action before the Court of First Instance to have the Commission’s decision annulled, penalising them (...)
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