Michel Debroux

The case of the chemical commodities cartel, which began in 2013 with Decision No. 13-D-12, continues to make headlines and its various developments will have greatly contributed to progress in the debates on, in particular, respect for the rights of the defence (see CA Paris, 2 February 2017, (...)

After six years of investigation resulting from a referral by the company Santéclair - one of the main healthcare networks - the Authority pronounced, on 12 November 2020, a heavy sanction against the National Council and five departmental councils of the Order of Dentists for having implemented (...)

Termite traps (decision 18-D-03 of February 20, 2018)), medical biology products (decision 19-D-11 of 29 May 2019), food products (decision 17-D-14 of 27 July 2017) or personal hygiene (decision 15-D-14 of 10 September 2015), etc. The decisions by which the Competition Authority sanctions the (...)

Like the Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation (see below), the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation will expire shortly (31 May 2022), together with the accompanying Guidelines on Vertical Restraints. The Commission therefore launched in October 2018 the review of the Vertical Block (...)

As is well known, the Vertical Restraints Regulation (No 330/2010) is not the only exemption regulation applicable to distribution. Certain texts with a narrower scope of application are also relevant, including the motor vehicle block exemption Regulation (No 461/2010). This Regulation and the (...)

When the delicatessen and cured meat manufacturers agree to sausage the competition, the Authority does not hesitate to sausage them. This is a heavy but logical sanction, which has just been applied to anold-stylecartel, in which a large number of industrial ham processors were working (...)

These are great times. Admittedly, the statement may come as a surprise or even a shock in these troubled times in terms of health and the economy, but for those who are interested in the foundations and aims of European competition law, these are exciting times. There is no shortage of works (...)

Molotov operates a platform for the distribution of online TV channels and services in OTT ( "over the top"), which allows the marketing of offers of access to audiovisual content online, without the intermediary of Internet Service Providers ("ISPs"). It markets its offer according to a model (...)

The Covid-19 health crisis has led the Authority to pay particular attention to the distribution of medical equipment, to act within a very short period of time when it considered it useful, and to make this widely known for a clear educational purpose. There are two illustrations in this (...)

Does the clarity of a notion arise from the abundance of attempts to explain it? If this were the case, the concept of restriction of competition by object would be clear today, between the Groupement des cartes bancaires judgment of 2014 (CJEU, 11 Sept. 2014, Case C-67-13 P, ConcurrencesNo. (...)

In anticipation of its future publication, let us quickly mention the decision of March 16, 2020 by which the Competition Authority heavily sanctioned Apple and two of its wholesalers, Tech Data and Ingram, for cartel practices within the distribution network of Apple’s products, as well as an (...)

This column was previously reported (Concurrences 2-2020, p. 82, M.D. note.) of the decision of 4 March 2020 by which the Authority sanctioned Apple and its two main wholesalers in France to the tune of EUR 1,24 billion (including EUR 1,1 billion for Apple ) for a series of practices (...)

The much-awaited judgment of the Fourth Chamber of the Court of Justice of 30 January in response to the questions referred by the Competition Appeal Tribunal [CAT] is already seen, together with thejudgment of 2 April 2020 in Case C-228/18 (Budapest Bank), as bringing, in a very timely (...)

And three... after Nike in March 2019 (cf. this Chronicle, n° 3-2019, p. 80, note M.D.) and Sanrio in July 2019 (cf. this Chronicle, no. 4-2019, p. 90, note E.T.).), it is now NBCUniversal which was sanctioned on 30 January 2020, following the in-depth investigation initiated by the European (...)

On December 17, 2019, the French Competition Authority imposed on the four historical issuers of restaurant securities and their joint body, the Centrale de Règlement des Titres (CRT), the largest sanction of the year, i.e. nearly 415 million euros. 415 million. To date, this is the fourth (...)

The importance of legal presumptions in economic law and particularly in competition law is well known (see the OECD report, "Protection regimes and legal presumptions in competition law", 2017 or M. Van der Woude, "Judicial Control in Complex Economic Matters", JECLP 2019, vol. 10, n° 17). We (...)

Competition law is not immune to fashion effects, and the topic of algorithms is nowadays undoubtedly a "trend" subject, as was the topic of big data a few years ago, even if it may arouse a form of skepticism about the novelty of the questions asked (Thibault Schrepel, Here’s why algorithms are (...)

Do we have to call him again? A grouping of undertakings may not impose a non-compete obligation between its members restricting their freedom to prospect for customers among themselves or to respond to invitations to tender. Such practices had been implemented within the Astre group, the (...)

It is difficult to clear up the long ruling handed down on 17 October 2019 by the Paris Court of Appeal (also commented on in the ’Proceedings’ column, below), which is the culmination of a case that saw the condemnation of the restrictions imposed on the online sale of Stihl chainsaws and other (...)

Loyal readers of this column are well aware of the debates on the distinction between restrictions of competition by object and by effect. One keeps in mind, of course, the Groupement CB judgments (CJEU, 11 September 2014, C-67/13 P; Concurrences4-2014, note M. B.-T., pp. 110-118) and Maxima (...)

Barely eight months between referral and decision... This rare speed can be explained here by the obvious shortcomings of the referral. Reading certain decisions of the Competition Authority sometimes leaves the commentator perplexed, so much so that the relationship between the facts and the (...)

The Court of Justice has published its Annual Report for the year 2018, which since 2015 has taken the form of three documents : Activity Report, Panorama of the Year and Management Report. These documents all share the same cover photograph, which highlights the towers which house the Court’s (...)

On 12 July, the Court of First Instance confirmed the €116 million sanction imposed by the European Commission in October 2015 on eight suppliers of optical disc drives (LDOs), including Sony, Philips and Toshiba, who had exchanged information as part of a strategy of coordinated responses to (...)

Let us quickly mention this decision by which, after a very (too?) long investigation, the Authority moderately sanctions a practice by which a manufacturer of top-of-the-range bicycles strongly reduced the freedom of its distributors to sell its products on the Internet. As the investigation (...)

It is rare for the Competition Authority to adopt a decision that appears, at first sight, to benefit only an extremely small number of economic actors, namely, in this case, only one. This is one of the peculiarities of this case, which also benefits from the honour of a press release (28 (...)

What do Hello Kitty, the Barcelona football club and the films Les Minions and Despicable Me ? The obvious answer, which will not surprise the readers of this column: competition law. Indeed, the derivative products relating to these different brands, marketed respectively by Sanrio, Nike and (...)

The case briefly commented on here, pending the publication of the decision, is symptomatic of the "ball of wool" effect that often characterises Commission investigations when it focuses on the practices of an entire sector. This concerns the car parts sector, where the Commission has already (...)

On 28 January 2019, the European Commission published its report on the application of competition law in the pharmaceutical sector, in which it calls for better collaboration between European competition authorities to promote access to affordable and innovative medicines. As luck would have (...)

With this decision, the Commission is returning to practices that have now been abolished. Until December 2015, MasterCard charged varying interchange fees in different countries, forcing "acquiring" banks (the bank of the retailer from which a cardholder makes a purchase) to pay the fees (...)

In issue No. 2-2018 of this Review, we commented on the decision adopted on 13 March 2018 by the Authoritywhich had sanctioned practices that were, after all, quite commonplace, such as the presentation of cover estimates in the context of calls for tenders. In this case, the bids were for (...)

What are the nature and scope of the effects of a Commission decision making commitments entered into by an undertaking pursuant to Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003 binding on third parties who are contractual partners of that undertaking but who are not covered by the Commission decision? It is (...)

Two years after his "Lundbeck" (Trib. EU 8 Sept. 2016, T-472/13, see "The Lundbeck case and the concept of potential competition", ConcurrencesNo. 2-2017, pp. 24-50.), the Court of First Instance once again addressed, in eight judgments totalling almost 900 pages, the complex question of the (...)

The Competition Authority’s constant efforts to popularise its action and infuse a better competition culture within French companies can sometimes have astonishing consequences, the most important of which are quite fanciful referrals. Such seems to be the case in this case, where the (...)

Following an investigation and seizure operations carried out by the DIRECCTE of Aquitaine, the Authority sanctioned on 26 July three anti-competitive practices in the veterinary medicine distribution sector, consisting partly of two bilateral customer allocation agreements between the three (...)

We know to what extent the purchasing power of mass distribution is regularly put in the dock, particularly in recent months in the context of the bill on trade relations in the agricultural and food sector. In this context, the Authority is determined to make its voice heard, as it did in its (...)

On 3 July 2018, the Court of First Instance delivered two judgments on referral, following the annulment of its first judgment in this case (Case T-379/10 and T-381/10) on 16 September 2013 by the Court’s judgment of 26 January 2017 (Case C-613/13 P, see this Chronicle, Concurrences No. 2-2017, (...)

The application of competition law to the agricultural sector is the focus of this issue, and this decision provides a further illustration of this. The Authority has just sanctioned a practice of drawing up and disseminating price instructions implemented by a trade union, and takes this (...)

Another decision adopted by the Authority following a transaction refusal proposed by the DGCCRF and, as in the case of Decision No. 18-D-02 commented on aboveThis is yet another sanction imposed on the company that refused the transaction. A survey carried out by the DGCCRF in 2013 led to the (...)

The Competition Authority is once again sanctioning exclusive import and distribution agreements in the overseas collectivities, on the basis of the "Lurel" Act (Act No. 2012-1270 of November 20, 2012), and specifies the scope of application of this Act. After the distribution of consumer (...)

Does refusing a transaction proposed by the DGCCRF have any interest? Between 2010 and 2014, the question remained open, in the absence of such refusals in the first 25 cases handled by the DGCCRF during this period (André Marie, Les pratiques anticoncurrentielles de dimension locale, JCl. (...)

A service for analyzing quotes offered by a health care network to its insureds in order to compare the prices offered to the latter by practitioners not affiliated with the network does not constitute either an agreement or a diversion of clientele. This is the conclusion just reached by the (...)

The Competition Authority declares itself incompetent to deal with anti-competitive practices complained of by Tarbes Diffusion Presse (TDP), a press agent, against Presstalis and Messageries Lyonnaises de Presse (MLP). In addition to allegations of abuse of a dominant position against (...)

Judging by the avalanche of comments devoted to it as soon as it was published, it’s an understatement to say that the Coty decision was expected! A reading of the conclusions of Advocate General Wahl of 26 July 2017 suggested that, if they were followed, they would confirm a development in the (...)

A seemingly exclusively Japanese cartel may be sanctioned by the European Competition Authority, the European Commission has just reminded in its decision of 22 November 2017. Five Japanese airbag and seat belt manufacturers had agreed to coordinate prices and markets to the detriment of the (...)

On 26 October 2017, the European Court of Justice handed down two judgments dismissing the appeals brought by four Spanish companies belonging to the Celsa steel group in the case of the cartel on the European market for prestressing steel, which has already been extensively commented on in (...)

Decisions to dismiss complaints are often succinct and do not always generate interest. This is not the case for the judgment handed down on 23 October 2017 by the Court of the Union rejecting the appeal lodged by the European Confederation of Watchmakers’ Associations (CEAHR) against a decision (...)

The decision adopted on 18 October 2017 by the Competition Authority is both fairly standard, since it concerns a cartel whose characteristics would make it a textbook case, and peculiar for several reasons. First of all, the amount of the penalties imposed is impressive, since with EUR 302 (...)

And six! On 19 July 2016, the Commission imposed a record fine of €2.926 billion on five truck manufacturers (MAN, DAF, Daimler, Iveco and Volvo/Renault) for taking part in a major 14-year cartel on the European truck manufacturing market. The sixth participant, Scania, had refused the (...)

The Authority is continuing its crusade against exclusive import agreements in the Overseas Collectivities, which began nearly ten years ago with the wide-ranging investigation that led to the adoption of Opinion No. 09-A-45 of 9 September 2009 and, subsequently, the adoption of the "Lurel" Act (...)

The cartel in automotive glass, which was heavily sanctioned by the Commission’s decision of 12 November 2008 (Case C(2008) 6815 final), has been the subject of several judgments on the merits in recent years, such as the judgments of the Court of First Instance of 27 March 2014, Saint-Gobain, (...)

Automotive glass in 2008, electrical wire harnesses in 2013, car bearings and seats in 2014, alternators and starters in 2016, battery recycling in 2017, thermal systems a few months ago, not to mention the heavy suspicions of a widespread cartel in Germany, which the newspaper Der Spiegel (...)

The removals sector has been the subject of sustained attention by the European and French competition authorities in recent years, and the decisions on the relocation of military personnel to the North-East region (Decision No 09-D-19) or in Martinique (Decision No. 14-D-16), or with regard to (...)

Ex-post evaluation exercises in the field of competition policy remain relatively rare and are largely confined to measures adopted in the context of merger control. One recalls, for example, the "Lear" report, commissioned by the Commission in 2006 to assess the results of numerous merger (...)

On 1 October 2008, the Commission fined nine companies €676 million for participating in a cartel on the European Economic Area (EEA) market for paraffin waxes between 1992 and 2005. The three judgments briefly commented on here dismiss in their entirety the appeals by which the appellants (...)

Back to the past... here is indeed an old case, judged on the merits for the first time by the Court of Appeal almost 14 years after the facts and almost 8 years after the decision was referred, which brings back memories of the time when the Authority’s decisions were not based mainly on (...)

The case concerning the worldwide cartel of cathode-ray television and computer screen tubes has already given rise to comments in this Review on the occasion of the Judgments of the Tribunal (see, in particular, No. 4-2015, p. 116), and the appeals against those judgments have the honours of (...)

Can exchanges of sensitive commercial information between competitors, as such and without explicit concertation on prices or the allocation of customers or markets, constitute an infringement by object? That is one of the main questions, already addressed by the Court of Justice in several (...)

The strict separation of the prosecution and trial functions within the Competition Authority is a principle that has been established since the Campenon Bernard ruling of 5 October 1999 by the Cour de Cassation, and no one is now thinking of challenging this principle. However, the not very (...)

In May 2015, the European Commission launched a major sector-wide survey on e-commerce, collecting responses from more than 1,800 e-commerce players (marketplaces, suppliers, distributors, price comparison sites, digital content publishers, etc.). This survey is part of the Commission’s strategy (...)

It should be noted that these two fairly brief judgments handed down by the Court of Justice on appeal against the judgment of the Court of First Instance of 15 July 2015 (Case T-422/10) in the case of the prestressing steel cartel, which has already been the subject of several comments in this (...)

The commented judgment, delivered on a question referred for a preliminary ruling, confirms that the Court, even in purely internal situations, is rarely reluctant to teach Union law when the aim is to ensure its uniform interpretation (see, in particular, CJEU 26 November 2015, Maxima Latvija, (...)

This decision is reminiscent of an old case which, like this one, combined elements of a horizontal cartel between two importers and a vertical cartel between them and their main distributors in France, namely the so-called "school calculators" case (CA Paris, 21 September 2004). This case also (...)

In a judgment of September 11, 2014, noted and commented on extensively, including in this Review Concurrences (Case C-67/13, CB v Commission, note M.B.-T.), the Court of Justice of the EU had put an end to what might appear to be a drift from the concept of restriction of competition "by (...)

Back to modern legal fiction. There are countless comments in this column on the theme of presumption-capital-presumption-refutable-but in fact-manifestly-irrefutable-indepit-of-denials-prudential-jurisprudential-as-constant-unconvincing? The judgment commented on here provides a further (...)

On 16 June 2016, the EU Court of Justice delivered two judgments in the case of the calcium carbide and magnesium carbide reagent cartel. The first judgment, discussed above, deals with the consequences of a subsidiary’s failure to comply with express instructions given by the parent company not (...)

The cartel in the Spanish road bitumen market, involving different producers as well as several bitumen importers, was detected as a result of the leniency programme. In addition to the first leniency applicant (a BP group company), several companies applied for immunity for providing relevant (...)

In this second judgment in the international air transit services cartel case, the Court of First Instance dismissed the action brought by a Swiss company and several of its subsidiaries, condemned by the European Commission for their participation in this cartel, the main features of which (...)

It is always interesting to examine the reasons why the Tribunal, after having summarized the pleas in law on which the appeals before it are based, decides to change the order in which those pleas are examined, or even to merge the examination of several of them. That is how the Court of First (...)

As the third and final judgment commented on in this case, the Kühne judgment is the only one to deal with all four aspects of the cartel in international air transit services. It gives rise to almost 20 pleas in law, grouped by the applicants into four groups corresponding to the four (...)

Saga Competition, continued. In the context of the facts summarised above, the Court also had before it an appeal against the decision on the merits handed down by the Competition Authority, an appeal which will suffer the same fate as the application for interim measures. The Competition (...)

Under the impetus of its Managing Director, Mr Jean Chapelle, Competition is well known to competition practitioners - and therefore to the readers of this Review - for the assiduity with which it provides the national and European authorities and courts with various and varied complaints. The (...)

The relationship between competition law and the rules applicable to the agricultural sector is often delicate and a source of friction (see for example our contribution "Agriculture and competition, towards a new relationship"...).). Since 2013, the Commission has endeavoured to develop this (...)

No one today would dispute the importance of the Competition Authority’s work in the area of opinions since the LME gave it the possibility of issuing opinions on its own initiative. We remember, of course,Opinion 12-A-01 of 11 January 2012 on the competitive situation in the food distribution (...)

It will be recalled that Advocate General Nils Wahl suggested in very strong terms that the Court should uphold the appeal brought by AC-Treuhand and set aside the judgment of the Court of First Instance of 6 February 2014 (Case T-27/10) which had confirmed its condemnation by the Commission as (...)

Under the chairmanship of Mr Thierry Dahan, whose involvement in the overseas territories is well known (firstly through his essential contribution to the founding opinion delivered on 8 September 2009 by the Competition Authority on the mechanisms for importing and distributing consumer goods (...)

On September 9, the Tribunal delivered several judgments in the cathode ray tube case, one of the most emblematic cartels of recent years. The Commission had imposed record fines of €1.47 billion on seven world-class companies for their participation in two cartels in the cathode ray tube (...)

(With Sanae Daoudi, DS Lawyers) The companies Khüne+Nagel, Express Interfracht and Schenker participated in a cartel on the market for rail freight services by ³cblock trains³d in violation of EU competition rules. In particular, the three companies engaged in a number of restrictive practices (...)

Who hasn’t dreamed, stuck in an endless traffic jam on the highway, of one day taking the hard shoulder and getting around the difficulty? That is something of what the Commission has done, and the Commission is being punished by the Court of First Instance for wanting to adopt a new decision, (...)

Akzo and its numerous subsidiaries continue to contribute to an impressive body of European case law, and the judgment under comment adds a further stone to the edifice. It will be recalled in particular that it was the checks carried out by the Commission in February 2003 in this case which (...)

This lengthy judgment, handed down by the Court of First Instance in the case of the banana cartel in Greece, Italy and Portugal, contains extensive, if not new, developments on the rules of proof of a cartel, whether it is an agreement or a concerted practice. It partially censors the decision (...)

The egg or the chicken? Which, competition law or regulation, comes before the other? It is precisely on the occasion of a decision sanctioning a cartel in the poultry sector that the Competition Authority provides a first response to this question, by making competition law a tool to (...)

The Opinion of Advocate General Nils Wahl on a question referred by the Romanian Court of Cassation for a preliminary ruling concerning the classification of a customer allocation practice as a restriction by reason of its object is of interest. These conclusions usefully clarify a debate (...)

Are the parent companies of a joint venture ’independent third parties’ in relation to the joint venture, despite the structural links between them? On reading the Court’s extensive case-law on the question of the imputability of anti-competitive practices of a subsidiary (or a joint venture) to (...)

Cass. com, 17 March 2015, Royal Canin and others, Appeals No. 13-26.003, 13-26.083 and 13-26.185 The Court of Cassation, before which several appeals have been lodged against the Paris Court of Appeal’s decision of 10 October 2013 in the dog and cat food case, had to rule for the first time on (...)

CJEU, 5 March 2015, Versalis and ENI v Commission, cases C-93/13 P and C-123/13 P. The issue at stake in this case, which raises the question of a form of retroactive application of recidivism, but also of the capital presumption, is an important one: can a parent company see its current (...)

Aut. conc., Dec. no. 14-D-20 of 22 Dec. 2014 on practices implemented in the wallpaper sector in France It is another matter of information exchange, of which this column is abundantly provided. After the Court’s Dole Fooddecision (cf. above) and the Authority’s decision in the Household and (...)

Aut. conc., Dec. no. 14-D-19 of 18 Dec. 2014 on practices implemented in the cleaning products and insecticides sector and in the hygiene and body care products sector On 18 December 2014, the Competition Authority adopted a decision imposing very heavy sanctions on the participants in two (...)

Although the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice have not gone back on the very principles of its case-law on the imputation to the parent company of the anti-competitive practices of its subsidiary - which are known to result today in rendering the de facto capitalist presumption (...)

It will be recalled that, by Decision C(2007) 5791 of 28 November 2007, the Commission found that the undertakings Guardian, Asahi Glass, Pilkington and Saint-Gobain had participated in a single and continuous infringement of Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty consisting in the fixing of prices in (...)

The Court of Cassation makes its contribution to the debate on parent-subsidiary relations in competition law and, more specifically, on the determination of the amount of the fine imposed on a subsidiary whose commercial autonomy vis-à-vis its parent company has been recognised, albeit (...)

On the same day as the decision briefly summarised above, the Commission also sanctioned a cartel between four major banks (RBS, UBS, JP Morgan and Credit Suisse) concerning spreads on Swiss franc interest rate derivatives. As RBS was the first to denounce the cartel, it was granted full (...)

The various ramifications of the agreements between banks on Libor continue to be sanctioned. Following the record sanctions imposed by the Commission on 4 December 2013 in two cartel decisions relating to euro and yen interest rate derivatives (cases AT.39914 and AT.39861), the Commission (...)

Who kisses too much, hugs badly? That is the lesson which seems to emerge from the present judgment, because to try too much to include all the alleged participants in a cartel in a single and continuous infringement, without providing sufficient legal justification for the individual (...)

What is a "mono-product" company? Should this characteristic be assessed in the light of the undertaking directly concerned by the practices penalised or in the light of the group to which it may belong? These are the questions raised in the appeal brought by several undertakings against the (...)

Rendered on the same day as the CB judgment discussed at length above and which amounts to a stricter conception of the concept of anti-competitive object, the MasterCard judgment provides an excellent illustration of the ’battle of the effects’ which this return suggests. It is the epilogue of a (...)

On 3 September 2014, the Commission imposed a fine of €138 million on four card chip producers (Infineon, Philips, Samsung and Renesas, at the time a joint venture between Hitachi and Mitsubishi) for various collusive practices between September 2003 and September 2005. The practices, as far as (...)

On 30 August 2014, the European Commission published a revised version of the rules governing agreements of minor importance which do not appreciably restrict competition, in order to take account in particular of the recent Expedia judgment of the Court of Justice (ECJ, 13 December 2012, case (...)

The third decision adopted by the European Commission in a "pay-for-delay" dossier after the Lundbeck decisions of 19 June 2013(COMP/ AT. 39226) and Novartis of 10 December 2013 (COMP/ AT. 39226).(COMP/. AT. 39685) is by far the most severe penalty. Servier was fined almost €331 million, while (...)

With regard to maritime consortia, the Commission is not changing a system that has proved its worth over the last 20 years, but remains vigilant about possible abuses of the system. This is, in essence, the message that emerges from the Commission’s extension of the current exemption regulation (...)

The FLS Plast judgment of the Court of 19 June 2014 is in line with the appeals already decided by the Court in the industrial bags case (Commission decision in Case 38.354 of 30 November 2005). In particular, this judgment provides an opportunity for the Court to further develop its case law (...)

This new judgment of the Court in the industrial plastic bags case comes after the Gascogne Sack Deutschland (C-40/12 P), Kendrion (C-50/12 P) and Groupe Gascogne (C-58/12 P) judgments.(already discussed in this column). Two pleas in law were raised, both of which were rejected after brief (...)

The decision handed down on March 6, 2012 by the Competition Authority, sanctioning several chicory producers and the National Federation of Endive Producers had caused a great stir in the agricultural world. The Authority had sanctioned practices described as a complex and ongoing cartel, (...)

This judgment is entirely devoted to the question of the determination of the amount of the penalty in a cartel case which had been brought to the Commission’s attention by a leniency application, and its lessons relate to the classic concepts in such cases: determination of the basic amount of (...)

On 2 April 2014, the Commission fined four companies a total of EUR 30 707 000 for a price cartel. These companies, which specialise in the production and sale of metallic abrasive shot, had in fact agreed on the resale prices of their products for more than six years. The context was (...)

On 2 April 2014, the Commission fined 11 producers of electric cables a total of €301 639 000 for having shared markets and projects and awarded prices for almost 10 years since 1999. These companies, European, Japanese and Korean, among others, divided up the major world markets requiring (...)

In his conclusions in the Groupement des cartes bancaires en France case, Advocate General Niels Wahl makes an interesting contribution to the debate on the concept of restriction of competition by object, emphasising that this case offers the Court an opportunity to refine its "somewhat (...)

In a previous column, we stressed how regrettable it was that the Court, in Grand Chamber, did not settle some of the questions submitted to it in the case which gave rise to the Gascogne judgment (see this Review, No. 1-2014, p. 56). This was the case, in particular, with the question, never (...)

Following an application for immunity, the European Commission launched an investigation into a cartel between the four main producers of polyurethane foam, Vita, Carpenter, Recticel and Eurofoam. For almost five years, between October 2005 and July 2010, these companies agreed to coordinate (...)

Trib. EU, 23 January 2014, Evonik Degussa and AlzChem v Commission, Case T-391/09 Trib. UE, 23 January 2014, SKW Stahl-Metallurgie Holding and SKW Stahl-Metallurgie v Commission, Case T-384/09 Trib. EU, 23 January 2014, Gigaset v Commission, Case T-395/09 We have already commented in a (...)

GIE Infogreffe has not engaged in any anti-competitive practice in the sector of electronic dissemination of economic and legal information on companies. This is the conclusion reached by the Competition Authority after an in-depth examination of Infogreffe’s pricing practices and its relations (...)

The medicines sector has undoubtedly been at the heart of the news for the Competition Authority in 2013, and will no doubt remain so in the coming months. On 19 December 2013, the Authority issued an opinion on the functioning of competition in the sector of distribution of medicinal products (...)

Here is a judgment as interesting as it is criticizable rendered by the Court of First Instance, which paradoxically shows that the capitalist presumption is indeed de facto irrefutable, even though it was not invoked in this case. In its first plea, to the examination of which the Court of (...)

CJEU, 5 December 2013, Caffaro v Commission, Case C-447/11 P CJEU, 5 December 2013, SNIA v Commission, Case C-448/11 P CJEU, 5 December 2013, Solvay Solexis v. Commission, Case C-449/11 P CJEU, 5 December 2013, Solvay v. Commission, Case C-455/11 P Cases in which the liability of the parent (...)

This could be summed up as a double missed opportunity. The first missed opportunity is that which would have made it possible to judge whether the systematic imputation of anti-competitive practices by a subsidiary to its parent company was in conformity with the Charter of Fundamental Rights (...)

Board of Directors Paris, 26.09.2013, Roland Vlaeminck Tisseur, 2012/08948 Board of Directors Paris, 26.09.2013, Roland Vlaeminck Tisseur, 2012/08948 Let us quickly point out this decision of the Court of Appeal, which deals essentially with the issue of abuse of a dominant position (not (...)

In its decision of 3 October 2007, the Commission imposed fines totalling €183.6 million on four companies that participated in a cartel on the bitumen market in Spain between 1991 and 2002. The fine imposed on Repsol and Proas was increased because of the leading role played by these two (...)

As regards the sanctioning of anti-competitive practices, if taking into account the duration of an infringement were an election, it would be decided on the basis of full proportionality. That is - hardly a caricature - the main lesson of the two judgments delivered by the Court of First (...)

It has been confirmed that the implementation of a cartel is not the best way to respond to an abuse of a dominant position (alleged and unproven). This is the lesson to be learned from the e-book case, which saw largely parallel developments on both sides of the Atlantic. In order to counter (...)

The Italian Consiglio di Stato referred to the Court for a preliminary ruling an unusually lengthy set of questions in a case in which the compatibility of a professional regulation which included the ’dignity of the profession’ among the criteria for fixing fees was at issue. The Consiglio di (...)

The Commission proposes a de minimis tidying-up of the de minimis notice. Following the Expedia judgment of 13 December 2012 (Case C-226/11, note NJD), the Commission is proposing a revision of the 2001 de minimis notice to incorporate one of the major contributions of this judgment, namely the (...)

The Competition Authority’s opinions sometimes look like Russian dolls: open one of them, and other opinions or decisions will come out of it. This is the case of the decision adopted on June 25, 2013 by the Authority, following a referral ex officio which followed various findings made during (...)

In its decision of 11 June 2008, the Authority, acting on its own initiative, sanctioned the Regional Council of the Ordre des vétérinaires d’Alsace (hereinafter ’CROV’) and the Syndicat national des vétérinaires d’exercice libéral - Section du Bas-Rhin for having put in place, from 1991 to 2008, a (...)

With this ruling of 11 June 2013, handed down on ten appeals against the Court of Appeal’s ruling of 26 January 2012, the Court of Cassation puts an end to the long, very long "Perfumes" case. The French Competition Authority, which took up the matter on its own initiative on October 21, 1998, (...)

You don’t mess with the "right price." This is not the programme broadcast on TF1, but the name of a file of "recommended" awards drawn up by Gefil, a trade association of private players in the leisure, culture and tourism engineering sector, which was named - quite awkwardly, it must be (...)

On 28 May 2013, the Competition Authority adopted its seventh decision applying the leniency procedure provided for in Article L. 464-2 IV of the French Commercial Code, which is also the first decision applying cumulatively the said leniency procedure and the non-contestation of objections (...)

After the attention it received from the Competition Authority, it was before the Court of Appeal that the little Diddl mouse, former schoolyard star, came to plead before the Court of Appeal. We recall that in its decision 11-D-19 of December 15, 2011The Authority had sanctioned resale (...)

CJEU, 19 December 2012, Bavaria v. Commission, Case C-445/11 P In two judgments delivered on 19 December 2012, the Court of Justice dismisses the appeals brought by two Dutch brewers against the judgmentof the General Court of 16 June 2011 in Case T-235/07which had allowed their actions in (...)

Form of order sought AG Niilo Jääskinen, 7 February 2013, Donau Chemie, Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Oberlandesgericht Wein, Case C-536/11 In this case, the Court is called upon to apply the principles set out in the Pfleiderer judgment of 14 June 2011 and to rule on the (...)

Aut. conc., Dec. No. 13-D-02 of February 4, 2013, "Copaco". Let us briefly mention, for the record, this decision concluding in the rejection of the referral of an Alsatian breakdown company, which complained of alleged discriminatory practices implemented by a corporation (an institution (...)

Is the Competition Authority a victim of the success of its constant educational efforts? The following two cases seem to bear witness to this, as it is clear that the complainants, apparently aware of competition law, had misjudged its nature and evidentiary requirements. But since the (...)

This case gives the Court of First Instance an opportunity to recall and illustrate the rules governing the rules of evidence in relation to anti-competitive practices, and in particular those specifying the burden on the Commission and on the undertakings concerned in demonstrating - or (...)

Decisions to convict a cartel implemented through a public tendering process rarely generate much theoretical interest, and this decision of April 7, 2013 is no exception. It should be noted, however, that in this case, the two undertakings took little precaution to conceal their cartel and (...)

Opinion of AG Kokott, 28 February 2013, Schenker und Co, Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Oberster Gerichtshof, Case C-681/11 It will be interesting to read the Court’s judgment in a few months’ time in this case, which essentially raises the question of the possibility of penalising (...)

Concordance No. 13-D-03 of February 13, 2013, concerning practices implemented in the pork butchering sector. The Authority’s recent decision in the pork butchering sector is interesting for a number of reasons. The Authority’s recent decision in the pork butchering sector is interesting for a (...)

Const. dec. no. 12-D-27 of 20 December 2012 on practices identified in the performance ticketing sector. Let us begin by paying due tribute to the subtle humour with which the Authority sometimes knows how to embellish its press releases, unless it is a mischievous coincidence? Thus, we read (...)

Aut. conc. dec. no. 12-D-26 of 20 December 2012 on practices implemented in the marketing, installation and maintenance of fire extinguishers In this decision, the Competition Authority examined various practices which, by unnecessarily complicating the obtaining of an NF standard relating to (...)

Trib. EU, 12 December 2012, Market for calcium carbide and magnesium intended for the steel and gas sectors, 4 judgments, Case T-352/09 Although they do not provide any particularly new or striking elements, these four judgments contain interesting clarifications on the interpretation of (...)

Trib. UE, 29 November 2012, Groupement des cartes bancaires "CB", Case T-491/07 It is a long and instructive judgment that the Tribunal delivered on 29 November 2012 in the Carte Bleue case. In dismissing the action brought against the Commission’s decision of 17 October 2007, the Court of (...)

Concordant Aut. opinion No. 12-A-21 of 8 October 2012 on the competitive functioning of the vehicle repair and maintenance and spare parts manufacturing and distribution sectors. Pressure is increasing on car manufacturers to challenge their quasi-monopoly, often based on intellectual property (...)

Trib. EU, 27 September 2012, Dutch road bitumen market, Sixteen judgments, no less than 500 pages in length, it is to a lengthy reading that the Tribunal invites the daring commentator of its judgments delivered on 27 September 2012 in the case concerning road bitumen in the Netherlands. (...)

Concordant Aut. opinion of 20 July 2012 on a draft decree on the supply of medicinal products for human use After veterinary medicinal products, which the Authority addressed in an opinion commented on in the previous column (this review Concurrences No. 3-2012, p. 99), the Authority turned (...)

Opinion of 13 July 2012 on the waste management sector covered by the principle of extended producer responsibility It has long been known that eco-organisations, while having a mission of general interest and being non-profit-making, act according to market mechanisms and are therefore (...)

These judgments, handed down on the day this column is finalized, will be commented on in detail in the next issue of the journal. It should be noted that, as a result of an error by the Commission concerning the duration of the practices in question on the French market, the Court of First (...)

GCEU, 29 May 2012, GDF Suez vs. Commission, Case T-370/09 GCEU, 29 May 2012, E.ON Ruhrgas AG and E.ON AG, case T-360/09 How can restrictions of competition rooted in a historical context characterised both by the absence of actual or potential competition at a given time, but by prospects, (...)

Aut. conc. opinion No 12-A-14 of 19 June 2012 on the effects of grouping together veterinarians involved in the distribution of veterinary medicinal products on competition. On 19 June 2012, the Competition Authority issued an opinion on the effects of the grouping of veterinarians involved in (...)

Cass. com, May 30, 2012, Orange France, n° 11-22144, "Téléphonie Mobile". Saga of the cartel of mobiles, continuation and end. The third ruling handed down by the Court of Cassation in this case brings to an end seven years of proceedings, begun by decision 05-D-65 of the Competition Council and (...)

GCEU, 24 May 2012, MasterCard a.o. v. Commission, Case T-111/08 This is a lengthy procedure which has just had an epilogue, possibly provisional, before the Court of First Instance of the European Union, with the confirmation of the Commission’s decision of 19 December 2007 condemning (...)

CA Paris, ch. 5-7, January 26, 2012, Beauté Prestige International and others; on second reference after cassation, against Cons. conc. dec. no. 06-D-04 of March 13, 2006, luxury perfumery sector Was it really necessary to save the ancient "luxury perfumery" file at all costs...? Despite the (...)

Concordance No. 12-A-12 of 15 May 2012 on the referral to the UIP of the matter concerning the conformity with competition rules of the statistics published by the CPDP on the volumes of sales of petroleum products by authorised warehousekeepers. Here is an opinion that is very much like a (...)

This judgment, which is also commented on in the "Procedures" column (see below, obs. P. Cardonnel). The Commission had received a complaint from the Comité de défense de la viticulture charentaise against the practices of the Institut national des appellations d’origine (INAO) and had rejected (...)

Trib. EU, 6 March 2012, UPM-Kymmene v. Commission, Case T-53/06, "Industrial plastic bags". Trib. EU, 6 March 2012, FLS Plast v. Commission, Case T-64/06, "Industrial plastic bags". Trib. EU, 6 March 2012, FLSmidth v Commission, Case T-65/06, "Industrial plastic bags". In this case of (...)

CJEU, 4 October 2011, Football Association Premier League, joined cases C-403/08 and C-429/08 This judgment provides a remarkable illustration of the close links between European competition law and the Treaty objective of achieving the integration of national markets through the establishment (...)

UECG, 23 November 2011, Jones a.o., Box T-320/07 Briefly, for the record, the judgment by which the Court of First Instance dismissed the action brought by several small coal producers established in South Wales against the decision of the European Commission rejecting their complaint against (...)

Aut. conc. dec. no. 11-D-19 of 15 December 2011 on practices implemented in the gadgets and novelty goods distribution sector, "Diddl". The Authority is sanctioning a friendly little mouse whose effigy is available in many forms and on many media... For those readers of this column who, while (...)

Aut. conc. dec. no. 12-D-06 of 26 January 2012 concerning practices implemented in the aggregates sector and downstream markets in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon The Authority is penalising four undertakings and the EIG formed between them for having implemented several agreements aimed at limiting (...)

Eur. Comm., dec. C(2011) 7436 final of 19 October 2011, CRT Glass, case COMP/39605 Eur. Comm., dec. C(2011) 8923 final of 7 December 2011, Refrigeration Compressors, Case COMP/39600 During the period under review, the Commission published two new decisions adopted under the ’settlement’ (...)

CJUE, 13 October 2011, Pierre Fabre Dermo-Cosmétique, Case C-439/09 With regard to distribution via the Internet, "it is prohibited to prohibit" seems to be the position taken by the Court of Justice in response to the question referred for a preliminary ruling by the Paris Court of Appeal in (...)

Trib. EU, 15 September 2011, Koninklijke Grolsch v Commission, Case T-234/07, "Dutch Beer Market". This case is a further illustration of the developments in case law that have emerged in recent months, both in the Court of First Instance and in the Court of Justice, concerning the (...)

A new reform of the Common Agricultural Policy will enter into force in 2013. Without amending the way competition rules apply to the agricultural sector, this reform will likely strengthen the trend initiated in previous reforms, which provide incentives for farmers to adopt a market-oriented (...)

Concise Aut. opinion No. 11-A-12 of 27 July 2011 on an interprofessional agreement in the turkey sector Concordant Aut. opinion n° 11-A-14 of 26 September 2011 on an interprofessional agreement in the wine sector (wines from the Bergerac region) In two separate opinions, concerning (...)

GCEU, 13 July 2011, ThyssenKrupp Liften Ascenseurs a.o. v. Commission, joined cases T-144/07, T-147/07, T-148/07, T-149/07, T-150/07 and T-154/07, "Installation and maintenance of elevators and escalators ". GCEU, 13 July 2011, Koné a.o. v. Commission, Case T-151/07, "Installation and (...)

Trib. EU, 12 July 2011, Hitachi and Others v. Commission, Case T-112/07, "Gas Insulated Switchgear". Trib. EU, 12 July 2011, Toshiba v Commission, Case T-113/07, "Gas Insulated Switchgear". Trib. EU, 12 July 2011, Fuji Electric v Commission, Case T-132/07, "Gas Insulated Switchgear". Trib. (...)

Cass. com, July 12, 2011, Lafarge and Vicat, n° 10-17482 and 10-17791, "Corsican Cement". (See also, supra, "Unilateral Practices" column, obs. A.-L. Sibony) Estimating damage to the economy is not a purely arithmetical matter, and an estimate should not be confused with a presumption. These (...)

Aut. conc. opinion No. 11-A-11 of July 12, 2011 on contract negotiation methods in the livestock sector in a context of volatile agricultural commodity prices. (See also, infra, "Procedures" column, obs. C. Lemaire and S. Naudin) Opinion after opinion, the Competition Authority is continuing (...)

Trib. EU, 16 June 2011, L’Air liquide v. Commission, Case T-185/06, "Hydrogen peroxide and perborate". Trib. EU, 16 June 2011, Solvay v. Commission, Case T-186/06, "Hydrogen Peroxide and Perborate". Trib. EU, 16 June 2011, FMC Foret v Commission, Case T-191/06, "Hydrogen peroxide and (...)

Cass. com, May 10, 2011, Expedia, No. 10-14881, "online travel sales sector". Is there a contradiction between the European Commission’s de minimis notice of 22 December 2001 and the case law of the Court on the concept of anti-competitive object? Can a national competition authority sanction (...)

GCEU, 22 March 2011, Alstoff Recycling Austria v. Commission, case T-419/03 Here is a cartel case that raises, under the surface, a few questions that are more in the area of abuse of dominant position. Alstoff Recycling Austria operates a nationwide collection and recovery system for (...)

Trib. EU, 3 March 2011, Siemens v Commission, Case T-110/07, "Gas Insulated Switchgear". Trib. UE, 3 March 2011, Areva and Others v Commission, cases T-117/07 and T-121/07, "Gas Insulated Switchgear". (See also, infra, "Procedures" column, obs. P. Cardonnel) In two separate judgements, the (...)

Opinion of AG Mazak, 3 March 2011, Pierre Fabre Dermo-Cosmétique, case C-439/09 In those conclusions, following a reference for a preliminary ruling from the Cour d’appel de Paris in the case of Pierre Fabre Dermo-Cosmétique, Advocate General Mazak takes the view that a general and absolute (...)

CJEU, 10 February 2011, Activision Blizzard Germany (formerly CD-Contact Data) v Commission, case C-260/09 P Liabilities or assets? The Court of Justice had to rule on the nature of the evidence adduced by one of Nintendo’s exclusive distributors sanctioned by the European Commission in 2002 to (...)

Opinion of AG Sharpston, 10 February 2011, KME Germany AG v. Commission, case C-272/09 P In his Opinion, Advocate General Sharpston reviews the criteria taken into account in determining the amount of a financial penalty and details the scope of the control to be exercised by the Union Court (...)

CJEU, 20 January 2011, General Química and Others v Commission, Case C-90/09 P Should this judgment be seen as an outline of a challenge - albeit modest - by the Court to one of the most criticised aspects of the case-law of recent years on the imputation of anti-competitive practices by a (...)

Fr. NCA, 17 January 2011, draft notice on the method followed when setting antitrust fines On the occasion of the Competition Authority’s traditional vows ceremony, President Lasserre announced the launch of a public consultation on the Authority’s draft press release on the method for (...)

Eur. comm., dec. C(2010) 8952 final, 8 December 2010, "French National Order of Pharmacists", case COMP/39510 The European Commission has just published its decision of 8 December 2010, in which it condemned the Ordre National des Pharmaciens ("ONP") for various practices designed to restrict (...)

Aut. conc. opinion no. 10-A-26 of 7 December 2010 on affiliation contracts for independent shops and the terms and conditions for the acquisition of commercial land in the food distribution sector The competition situation in large-scale food retailing has rarely been deemed satisfactory in (...)

[CA Paris, ch. 5-7, December 2, 2010, Euro Power Technology]; against Aut. conc., Dec. no. 10-D-14 of 16 April 2010 relating to practices implemented in the sector of the electrical valorisation of biogas This judgment only marginally deals with cartel issues, so it will be briefly commented (...)

against Aut. conc., Dec. no. 10-D-04 of January 26, 2010 on practices implemented in the operating table sector It is well known that, in the field of anti-competitive practices, the immunity enjoyed by intra-group agreements is subject to an exception in French decision-making practice and (...)

Conclusions AG Bot, 26 October 2010, ThyssenKrupp Nirosta v Commission, case C-352/09 P The Advocate General has delivered his Opinion in the case of ThyssenKrup Nirosta (formerly ThyssenKrupp Stainless) v Commission. The present appeal against thejudgment of the General Court of 1 July 2009 (...)

Council Regulation (EC) No 10-D-35 of 15 December 2010 on practices in the supply of welding electrodes for automobile manufacturers Cases of consultation between competitors with a view to exchanging confidential information before responding to calls for tenders and allocating customers and (...)

CA Paris, ch 5-7, 16 September 2010, Raffalliagainst Aut. conc., Dec. no. 09-D-34 of 18 November 2009 relating to public works contracts for electricity and public lighting in Corsica On November 18, 2009, the Adlc sanctioned several companies established in Corsica for having consulted each (...)

Trib. EU, 8 September 2010, Deltafina v. Commission, Case T-29/05 In its decision ’Raw Tobacco - Spain’ of 20 October 2004 (COMP/C.38.238/B2), the Commission had heavily sanctioned Deltafina, giving it a leading role in the part of the cartel involving the first processing stage of raw tobacco. (...)

This third roundtable of the conference “Reform of vertical distribution”, Paris, 27 May 2010, is dedicated to the legal categories of the various forms of distribution. The first paper goes back over the legalistic and form-based approach that had characterised the Commission’s competition policy (...)

Aut. conc. dec. no. 10-D-26 of July 28, 2010 relating to practices identified on public network grouped works contracts awarded by the EDF-GDF Services purchasing platform in Montpellier This decision calls for little comment, but it is interesting, read in light of the Court of Appeal’s (...)

Aut. conc., Dec. n° 10-D-22 of 22 July 2010 relating to practices implemented in the health transport sector in Seine-Maritime Another case of consultation prior to the submission of responses to a call for tenders... And as is often the case, the facts are simple, even repetitive: a university (...)

Aut. conc. dec. no. 10-D-17 of 25 May 2010 on practices implemented on the market for competition pétanque boules Did the Authority fire or point? In any event, it has examined in detail the market for sporting events linked to the world of competitive pétanque, and in particular the exclusivity (...)

General Court, 12 May 2010, EMC Development v. Commission, Case T-432/05 By adopting a harmonised standard, has a professional association in the cement sector discriminated between the players in this sector? And by rejecting the complaint lodged by a player in that market, has the Commission (...)

CA Paris, ch. 5-7, 11 May 2010, Aaction Dem and others. v. Aut. conc., Dec. no. 09-D-19 of 10 June 2009 concerning practices relating to the relocation of military personnel under CCAT from the Army to Nancy Another tender agreement package. As is often the case, the facts were particularly, (...)

Trib. UE, 28 April 2010, Amann & Söhne and Cousin Filterie v Commission, Case T-446/05, Industrial Yarn Market Trib. EU, 28 April 2010, BST v. Commission, Case T-452/05, Industrial Wire Market Trib. EU, 28 April 2010, Gütermann and Zwicky v. Commission, cases T-456/05 and T-457/05, industrial (...)

Commission Regulation (EU) No 330/2010 of 20 April 2010 on the application of Article 101(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to categories of vertical agreements and concerted practices, OJEU No L. 102, 23 April 2010, p. 1. Communication from the Commission, Guidelines on (...)

Aut. conc. dec. no. 10-D-12 of 15 April 2010 relating to practices implemented by Hypromat France SAS in the high-pressure car wash sector The Blue Elephant didn’t make much of a mistake... It will be remembered from this interesting decision of the Authority that it is very cautious in dealing (...)

Cass. com, 7 April 2010, Association Familles rurales et Ministre de l’économie, de l’industrie et de l’emploi, n° 09-13494 and 09-66021, aff. des consignes syndicales de dépassement des tarifs conventionnels par les médecins spécialistes de secteur 1 With this decision of April 7, 2010, the French (...)

Commission Regulation (EU) No 267/2010 of 24 March 2010 on the application of Article 101(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to certain categories of agreements, decisions and concerted practices in the insurance sector, OJ L83, 30 March 2010, p. 1. Here we briefly (...)

Aut. conc. dec. no. 10-D-11 of March 24, 2010 on practices implemented in the eyeglass replacement sector In this case, the Competition Authority took a very negative view of the boycott practices implemented by the national union of ophthalmologists of France (SNOF) . This case is an (...)

CA Paris, ch. 5-7, 19 January 2010, AMD Sud-Ouest and others. v. Council, Dec. No. 08-D-32 of 16 December 2008 on practices in the steel products trading sector It is an understatement to say that this judgment has caused quite a stir, both because of the unprecedented scale of the reduction (...)

CA Paris, ch. 5-7, 19 January 2010, AMD Sud-Ouest and others. v. Council, Dec. No. 08-D-32 of 16 December 2008 on practices in the steel products trading sector In a decision dated January 19, 2010, the Paris Court of Appeal confirmed the decision of the French Competition Council 08-D-32 of (...)

CA Paris, ch. 5-7, 29 October 2009, Pierre Fabre Dermo-cosmetics v. Council, Dec. No. 08-D-25 from 29 October 2008, distribution of cosmetic and personal hygiene products sold on pharmaceutical advice At a time when the European Commission is revising the rules applicable to vertical (...)

Cass. com, 13 October 2009, Spie et Spie SCGPM, n° 08-18224, aff. Lycées d’Ile-de-France The Court of Cassation has just dismissed the appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal of 3 July 2008 in the so-called "des Lycées d’Île-de-France" case. This decision should be read in conjunction (...)

Aut. conc. dec. no. 09-D-31 of 30 September 2009 relating to practices implemented in the management and marketing of the sports rights of the French Football Federation (FFF) Red card for the FFF and its partner Sportfive. The picture is certainly easy, but it is obvious from the decision of (...)

ECJ, 10 September 2009, Akzo and Others v Commission, Case C-97/08 P It’s an understatement to say that this stop was expected. The first judgment handed down by the Court on the subject of the imputability to the parent company of offences committed by a subsidiary since its Stora judgment of (...)

Concordant Aut. opinion No. 09-A-46 of 9 September 2009 on the effects on competition of the development of approved care networks. Overall, the Authority, which has been asked for an opinion by the Minister of the Economy, has just issued a blank check on the practice of approving healthcare (...)

ECJ, 3 September 2009, Papierfabrik August Koehler AG and Others v Commission, cases C-322/07 P, C-327/07 P and C-338/07 P. Fundamental rights are not to be compromised, and their violation calls only for a sanction, the annulment of the flawed decision. This is, in essence, the main lesson of (...)

CFI, 9 July 2009, Automobiles Peugeot S.A. and Peugeot Nederland NV v. Commission, Case T-450/05 This long and detailed judgment is in line with the judgments of the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice in other cases involving practices restricting parallel exports of motor (...)

The Commission has just imposed its first cartel fine in the energy sector, imposing a record €553 million on E.ON and GDF Suez each for a market-sharing agreement linked to the construction of the MEGAL pipeline in 1975. The decision will be commented as soon as the non-confidential version of (...)

Cass. com, July 7, 2009, Lafarge and Vicat, n° 08-15609 and 08-16094 The Corsican cement saga has just reached its epilogue, at least in the part concerning the cartel grievances which led to the conviction of Lafarge and Vicat, as well as the GIE Groupement logistique ciments Haute-Corse on (...)

ECJ, 4 June 2009, T-Mobile Netherlands and Others v Raad van bestuur van de Nederlandse Mededingingsautoriteit, Case C-8/08 The Court has therefore followed the recommendations of Advocate General Julianne Kokott (presented in No 2-2009 of Concurrences) and adopted an extremely strict position (...)

CFI, 6 May 2009, Wieland-Werke AG v. Commission, Case T-116/04 CFI, 6 May 2009, Outokumpu Oyj and Luvata Oy v. Commission, Case T-122/04 CFI, 6 May 2009, KME Germany and Others v. Commission, Case T-127/04 Relatively little can be said of these three judgments delivered by the Tribunal more (...)

CFI, 30 April 2009, CD Contact Data v. Commission, Case T-18/03. CFI, 30 April 2009, Itochou Corp. v Commission, Case T-12/03 CFI, 30 April 2009, Nintendo v Commission, Case T-13/03 What is the point of having compliance programs in place? This could be one of the conclusions to be drawn from (...)

The choline chloride judgment which the Court of Justice is expected to deliver shortly is eagerly awaited, as the Court will have the opportunity to clarify in it its Stora case law of 28 February 2002 on the conditions under which the practices of a subsidiary can be imputed to its parent (...)

Opinion of AG Bot, 2.4.09, Papierfabrik August Koehler AG a.o. v. Commission, joined cases C-322/07 P, C-327/07 P and C-338/07 P The issue of the imputability of anti-competitive practices by a subsidiary to its parent company, as well as the consequences of the Commission’s policy of (...)

In the antitrust world, times have changed. Compliance programs cannot aim at merely raising the “antitrust awareness” anymore. Instead, they increasingly tend to impose stricter standards and apply best practices that are often influenced by antitrust agencies. This paper, drawn upon the (...)

CA Paris, 1st ch. H, 18 March 2009, Union nationale des médecins spécialistes confédérés e.a.v. Council, Dec. No. 08-D-06 of 2 April 2008, trade union instructions for the overrun of conventional tariffs by sector specialist doctors What is artificial is not systematically anti-competitive, the (...)

CA Paris, 1st ch. H, 25 February 2009, Transeuro Desbordes Worldwide Relocations e.a.against Cons. conc., Dec. no. 07-D-48 of 18 December 2007, national and international moving sector The contested decision was, after the one relating to the cartel in the manufacture of wooden doors (Decision (...)

Conclusions AG Kokott, 19 February 2009, T-Mobile Netherlands BV and Others, Case C-8/08. What is an anti-competitive object? Can it be presumed that there is a causal link between a concerted action and the market behaviour of the undertakings which took part in it, even when the concerted (...)

CFI, 18 December 2008, General Química and Others v Commission, Case T-85/06. Here is a new judgment delivered by the Court of First Instance on the imputation of the practices of a subsidiary to its parent company, an issue whose frequency before the Court of First Instance and the importance (...)

ECJ, 18 December 2008, Coop de France bétail et viandes, FNSEA and Others v Commission, cases C-101/07 P and C-110/07 P. On 18 December 2008, the Court of Justice put an end to the so-called "French beef" case, which had made headlines and had received considerable attention in agricultural (...)

Conc. conc. dec. no. 08-D-32 of 16 December 2008 on practices implemented in the steel products trading sector This is a record for the Competition Council, which has once again demonstrated the firmness it can show when faced with what it considers to be exceptionally serious practices. 575 (...)

Conc. conc. dec. no. 08-D-29 of 3 December 2008 relating to practices noted in the sector of public contracts for the maintenance of joinery, metalwork and locksmith’s trade Unfortunately, the facts are relatively standard: the DGCCRF carries out comparative analyses of twenty-three (...)

Cons. conc. dec. n° 08-D-28 of 3 December 2008 relating to practices implemented by companies exploiting aggregates in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine Decisions sanctioning concerted practices in the context of calls for tenders follow one another with remarkable regularity and are often (...)

Are the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and EU Competition policy inherently antithetical? Have these two policies been condemned to mutual misunderstanding ever since the entry into force of the Treaty of Rome? For some, the issue is clear: the agriculture industry should not be subject to (...)

Const. conc. dec. no. 08-D-25 of 29 October 2008 on practices implemented in the distribution sector of cosmetic and personal hygiene products sold on pharmaceutical advice A year and a half after its decision 07-D-07 of March 8, 2007 at the end of which many cosmetics laboratories had (...)

Const. dec. no. 08-D-20 of October 1, 2008 relating to practices implemented by subsidiaries of Compagnie Financière et de Participation Roullier. Nothing escapes the piercing of the bloodhounds from the Competition Council, and it is not the cattle that placidly lick the large blocks of food (...)

ECJ, Opinion AG Trstenjak, 4 September 2008, Beef Industry Development Society and Barry Brothers, Case C-209/07 Must the concept of the anti-competitive object of an agreement be assessed restrictively and apply only to hardcore infringements or, on the contrary, must it be analysed in the (...)

Conc. conc. dec. no. 08-D-19 of 31 July 2008 on a request for provisional measures by AP Moeller-Maersk "Settling accounts at OK Terminal": this could be the title under which to summarise the circumstances, which were unusual to say the least, that led to the referral of this case to the (...)

CFI, 18 June 2008, Hoechst v. Commission, Case T-410/03, "Sorbates". This lengthy judgment belongs to the category of those which contain almost all the pleas in law which appear to be capable of being raised against a Commission decision imposing a fine under the former Leniency and Fines (...)

Eur. Comm., dec. C(2012) 1965 final of 11 June 2008, Sodium Chlorate, case COMP/38695 As a matter of form, the non-confidential version of the Commission’s Sodium Chlorate decision has been published four years after its adoption and, more importantly, almost one year after the Court’s judgment (...)

Conc. conc. opinion n° 08-A-07 of 7 May 2008 on the economic organisation of the fruit and vegetable sector Opinion after opinion, the Council is continuing its educational work in the agricultural sector, which is slowly opening up to the lessons of competition law. In this case, it is the (...)

CA Paris, 1st ch. H, May 6, 2008, Lafarge Ciments SA and others.v. Council, Dec. No. 07-D-08 of 12 March 2007, "Ciment Corse". The judgment handed down by the Paris Court of Appeal is of interest both in the field of abuse of a dominant position, since it concerned a complaint of abuse of a (...)

Conc. conc. dec. 08-D-06 of 2 April 2008 relating to union instructions for sector 1 specialist doctors to exceed conventional tariffs Competition Council flies to the rescue of the social security deficit! We know to what extent the Council is concerned about education, especially when it (...)

1. "You choose your friends, you don’t choose your... family." In view of the systematic policy of accountability to parent companies for the practices of their subsidiaries set up by the Group. by the European Commission since a few years1 , the adage also seems to be apply to groups2 of (...)

Conc. conc. dec. no. 07-D-45 of December 13, 2007 on practices in the pharmaceutical distribution sector (Pfizer) Conc. conc. dec. no. 07-D-46 of December 13, 2007 on practices in the pharmaceutical distribution sector (GlaxoSmithKline) These two Board decisions, which are in line with (...)

CFI, 12 December 2007, BASF and UCB v Commission, cases T-101/05 and T-111/05, Choline Chloride CFI, 12 December 2007, Akzo Nobel and Others v Commission, Case T-112/05, Choline chloride. In two judgments delivered on the same day, the Court of First Instance ruled on the actions brought by (...)

Cons. conc. dec. no. 07-D-42 of 30 November 2007 relating to certain practices implemented by Blédina, Nestlé, Sodilac, Nutricia-Milupa and their professional union on the infant formula market. Here is a very interesting and subtle decision by the Council, which looked at the market for infant (...)

EC Comm, 17 October 2007, Groupement des cartes bancaires "CB", case COMP/D1/38.606 The Commission has recently published in full its Bank Cards Decision of 17 October 2007. This dense (180 pages) and complex decision brings to a close until further notice a particularly long investigation, (...)

CA Paris, 1st ch. H, October 2, 2007v. Council, Dec. No. 06-D-15Railway track laying and maintenance sector The reductions or - rare - increases by the Paris Court of Appeal of the pecuniary penalties imposed by the Competition Council are decidedly tricky to interpret. The Court ruled on the (...)

Conc. conc. dec. no. 07-D-25 of 25 July 2007 relating to referrals from the CNPA against certain motorcycle manufacturers concerning the conditions of distribution of their products. Referred by the Conseil National des Professions de l’Automobile (CNPA), the Competition Council examined in (...)

CA Paris, 1st ch. H., June 26, 2007, Guerlain and others (Part. 1 ; Part. 2Paris Court of appeal (Cour d’appel de Paris, 1ère ch. Section H), 26 juin 2007, Guerlain a. o. v. Conseil de la concurrence, Case RG 2006/07821 (“Luxury perfumes distribution”)(P2)), v. Conc. Cons. 06-D-04"Luxury perfumery (...)

ECJ, 25 January 2007, Dalmine v. Commission, Case C-407/04 P ECJ, 25 January 2007, Salzgitter Mannesmann v. Commission, Case C-411/04 P ECJ, 25 January 2007, Sumitomo Metal Industries and Nippon Steel v, Commission, joined cases C-403/04 P and C-405/04 P In three judgments delivered on 25 (...)

CFI, 26 April 2007, Bolloré and Others v Commission, "Carbonless paper", Joined Cases T-109/02, T-118/02, T-122/02, T-125/02, T-126/02, T-128/02, T-129/02, T-132/02, T-136/02. Another Commission decision on horizontal cartels was largely confirmed by the Court of First Instance, which (...)

More movies... We will briefly mention this decision by the Competition Council to dismiss the case, whose lessons for unilateral practices should also be highlighted. The company Loisi-chèques had referred to the Council practices allegedly committed by the company EuroPalaces and the Fédération (...)

Cons. conc. dec. no. 07-D-08 of 12 March 2007 relating to practices implemented in the cement supply and distribution sector in Corsica Here again is a long and thorough decision in which the Competition Council condemns several cement manufacturers (Lafarge and Vicat), as well as an EIG in (...)

ECJ, 8 February 2007, Danone v. Commission, case C-3/06 P In its judgment of 8 February 2007, the Court confirms the judgment of the Court of First Instance of 25 October 2005 and rules on an important point of law. At issue was whether, in the assessment of the concept of recidivism, the (...)

CA Paris, 1st ch. H, January 23, 2007, Pharma-Labv. Council, Dec. No. 05-D-72 of 20 December 2005, ’Parallel exports of medicinal products’. The conditions and limits under which pharmaceutical laboratories may impose certain restrictions on wholesaler-distributors, and in particular supply (...)

Conciliation Council, Procedural Communiqué of 27 December 2006, Cinema exhibition In 2000, the advent of subscription cards allowing "unlimited" access to cinema exhibitors’ networks had profoundly shaken the economy of the sector and provoked strong reactions from many film professionals. (...)

CFI, 13 December 2006, FNCBV v. Commission, Joined Cases T-217/03 and T-245/03 The case is well known, and the Commission’s decision on which the appeal was based was the subject of much discussion in 2003. It will be briefly recalled that the main French cooperatives of beef producers, (...)

CFI, 5 December 2006, Westfalen Gassen Nederland v Commission, Case T-303/02. We have already underlined in this column, on the occasion of a commentary on the zinc phosphates judgment, the difficulty faced by any alleged member of a cartel who intends to withdraw from it (CFI, 29 November (...)

* See also, supra, Frédéric Jenny, Emmanuel Combe, John M. Connor, Paolo Buccirossi, Giancarlo Spagnolo, L’efficacité des sanctions contre les ententes : Une perspective économique, Concurrences, n° 4-2006, Tendances, pp. 10-30 ; François Lévêque, L’efficacité des programmes de clémence, Concurrencesn° (...)

ECJ, November 23, 2006, Asnef-Equifax v. Ausbanc, Case C-238/05 Within a few months, the old "John Deere" case law on the exchange of information between competitors will have seen a clear revival of interest in France, with several decisions, opinions and rulings commented on in these columns (...)

CFI, 27 September 2006, Archer Daniels Midland v. Commission, "Citric acid", Case T-59/02 CFI, 27 September 2006, Jungbunzlauer AG v. Commission, "Citric acid", Case T-43/02 As we have just seen, the judgments handed down by the CFI, which essentially concern the amount of the fines imposed by (...)

CFI, 27 September 2006, Avebe v. Commission, "Sodium Gluconate", Case T-314/01 CFI, 27 September 2006, Roquette Frères v. Commission, "Sodium Gluconate", case T-322/01 CFI, 27 September 2006, Archer Daniels Midland v. Commission, "Sodium Gluconate", Case T-329/01 CFI, 27 September 2006, Akzo (...)

Cons. conc. dec. no. 06-D-24 of 24 July 2006 relating to the distribution of watches marketed by Festina France Council Resolution, Dec. 06-D-28 of 5 October 2006 on practices implemented in the sector of selective distribution of Hi-fi and home cinema equipment. In two separate cases, the (...)

ECJ, 18 May 2006, Archer Daniels Midland v Commission, "Amino acids - Lysine", Case C-397/03 P ECJ, 29 June 2006, Commission v SGL Carbon, "Graphite electrodes", Case C-301/04 P ECJ, 29 June 2006, SGL Carbon v Commission, "Graphite electrodes", Case C-308/04 P ECJ, 29 June 2006, Showa Denko KK (...)

Conc. opinion n° 06-A-09 of 14 April 2006 relating to a referral from the Union des expéditeurs et exportateurs en fruits et légumes du Finistère (Union of consignors and exporters of fruit and vegetables in Finistère) The agricultural sector continues to attract the attention of competition (...)

ECJ, 6 April 2006, General Motors BV v Commission, Case C-551/03 P This judgment should strengthen the Commission’s position in its fight against measures restricting the export of motor vehicles, in respect of which manufacturers are regularly prosecuted (see the "Peugeot" Decision of 5 (...)

The Council analyses the operation of contracts between producers and distributors and indicates the criteria for valid certification under competition law. Conc. conc. opinion n° 06-A-07 of 22 March 2006 concerning the examination, with regard to competition rules, of the operating methods of (...)

CFI, 15 March 2006, Daiichi Pharmaceutical v. Commission, Case T-26/02 CFI, 15 March 2006, BASF v. Commission, Case T-15/02 1. BASF Leader or instigator, are the two concepts equivalent? This is, briefly summarised, one of the many questions which the CFI had to answer in the context of the (...)

Clarification of the concept of spontaneous cooperation and the obligation to respond to requests for access to documents In the graphite electrodes case, commented on in this review (Concurrences , n° 1-2004, Chronique Ententes, p. 51), Advocate General Geelhoed delivered two Opinion on 19 (...)

Conc. conc. dec. no. 05-D-72 of 20 December 2005 on practices implemented by various laboratories in the sector of parallel exports of medicines In this case, which is part of a pharmaceutical "saga" that is already well documented, several practices were denounced by the drug exporting (...)

CFI, 29 November 2005, Britannia Alloys & Chemicals Ltd and Others v. Commission, "Zinc Phosphate", Case T-33/02. CFI, 29 November 2005, SNCZ v. Commission, "Zinc Phosphate", case T-52/02 CFI, 29 November 2005, Union Pigments v. Commission, "Zinc Phosphate", case T-62/02 CFI, 29 November (...)

The Court of First Instance annuls the major part of the fine imposed by the Commission on DaimlerChrysler on the ground that its agents must be regarded as integrated into the undertaking, confirms the existence of a cartel between dealers and a subsidiary and sets out the principles of (...)

Conc. conc. dec. no. 05-D-38 of 5 July 2005 on practices implemented in the urban passenger transport market If it were not for the size of the financial penalty imposed, the case that gave rise to the decision of 5 July 2005 would probably call for little comment. As reported in the decision, (...)

CFI, 15 June 2005, Tokai Carbon and Others v Commission, "Specialty Graphites", Joined Cases T-71/03, T-74/03, T-87/03 and T-91/03. Following the Graphite Electrodes decision of April 29, 2004, already commented on in the first issue of this review (ConcurrencesNo. 1-2004, p. 51), the Group is (...)

Council Decision No. 05-D-14 of 6 April 2005 on practices implemented on the occasion of antique and second-hand goods fairs in the Vosges department. The Commission’s decision-making practice is abundant in "educational" cases, where the size of the monetary penalty, which is generally modest, (...)

Council Regulation (EC) No 05-D-12 of 17 March 2005 on practices in the market for audience measurement in the national daily press sector and in the related market for advertising in this sector, "EUROPQN". This is the first case in which a possible agreement was dealt with by the Board using (...)

Council Decision No. 05-D-11 of March 16, 2005 on practices implemented in the billboard advertising sector within the rail network and in the passenger transport sector on the Paris-London route (British Airways/France Rail In response to a complaint from British Airways, Council had to (...)

Conc. conc. dec. no. 05-D-10, 15 March 2005 concerning restrictive practices implemented on the cauliflower market in Brittany, France. The agricultural sector remains one of the few markets that is still heavily regulated. It is also the only sector in which the Commission has retained its (...)

Cons. conc. dec. 05-D-06 of February 23, 2005 relating to a referral from Studio 26 against Rossimoda, Marc Jacob’s International, LVMH Fashion Group and LVMH Fashion Group France The fixing of fixed prices constitutes, as is well known, a hardcore restriction of competition which, if it is (...)

CA Paris, 1st ch. H, 26 October 2004, Fédération départementale de la boulangerie-pâtisserie de la Marne, against Dec. n° 04-D-07 Bread, but little at stake... ? In this decision, the Paris Court of Appeal applied for the first time the threshold of sensitivity in the wording resulting from Order (...)

EC Commission, 20 October 2004, Raw Tobacco - Spain, Case COMP/C.38.238/B2 EC Commission, Press release IP/05/1315 of 20 October 2005, Raw tobacco - Italy, Case COMP/38.281. Is the agricultural sector on the way to becoming as regular a provider of cartel decisions at Community level as, for (...)

CFI, 14 October 2004, Bayerische Hypo und Vereinsbank v Commission, Case T-56/02. CFI, 14 October 2004, Dresdner Bank v Commission, Case T-44/02 CFI, 14 October 2004, Vereins- und Westbank v Commission, Case T-54/02. CFI, 14 October 2004, Deutsche Verkehrsbank v Commission, Case T-60/02 CFI, 14 (...)

CFI, 30 September 2004, Meca-Medina and Majcen v. Commission, Case T-313/02 Any economic regulation has a restrictive effect in that it limits the freedom of action of economic operators. However, the existence of such an effect is not sufficient to trigger the application of Article 81. (...)

CFI, 29 April 2004, Tokai Carbon a.o. v. Commission, "Graphite Electrodes", joined cases T-236/01, T-239/01, T-244/01 to T-246/01, T-251/01 and T-252/01 The graphite electrodes cartel, a classic example of an international price-fixing and market-sharing cartel, was sanctioned in Europe by (...)

EC Comm, 7 April 2004, Air France/Alitalia Linee Aeree Italiana SpA, Case COMP/38.284/D2 Just days before the entry into force of Regulation 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the competition rules laid down in Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty (OJEC 4 January 2003 L 1/1), the (...)