Paloma Martínez-Lage is a Partner at Martínez Lage, Allendesalazar & Brokelmann in Madrid, where she specialises in EU and Spanish competition law. She graduated in Law from the University San Pablo-CEU in Madrid (1997), where she obtained a certificate of specialisation in Business Administration (1998). She holds an LL.M degree in European Community Law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (1999, Grand Distinction). Her practice covers abuses of dominant position, anti-competitive agreements, merger control issues and state aid rules, as well as follow-on damages claims, with a particular focus on sectors such as telecommunications and energy. Paloma has previously worked as an in-house lawyer in the Corporate Legal and Regulatory Affairs Department of a mobile operator in Spain.
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A new competition Act has entered into force in Spain since September, 1st 2007. The new Act entails a significant reform of the Spanish competition regime and will bring in further harmonisation of Spanish competition law with the EU rules. The new Act replaces the individual authorisation (...)
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The decision of the competition authority On 9 March 2000, the Tribunal de Defensa de la Competencia (TDC) -the second-tier competition authority that existed in Spain under Act 16/1989 and that has been replaced since September 1st 2007 by a single body, the National Competition Commission- (...)
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Introduction On 6 March 2003, the Spanish Supreme Court (the Tribunal Supremo, TS) confirmed a judgement of the Spanish National Court (the Audiencia Nacional, AN) which upheld a decision of 1 February 1995 by the Spanish competition authority (the Tribunal de Defensa de la Competencia, TDC (...)
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The Tribunal de Defensa de la Competencia (TDC) issued on 22 July 2002 a decision in which it established that documents created by companies in the context of their defence in competition proceedings before the European Commission did not have to be delivered to the Servicio de Defensa de la (...)
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Stevedoring services have had a special regime in Spain since 1986, when they were historically qualified as an essential state-owned public service. According to this regime, only those professionals who were employees of the public stevedoring company of each port (“Sociedades Estatales de (...)
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In 2016, the Spanish competition authority (CNMC) fined seven Chevrolet car dealers and a consultancy firm for exchanging commercially sensitive information and fixing prices between January 2011 and January 2012 (Decision of the CNMC of 28 April 2016, case S/DC/0505/14 Concesionarios (...)
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The Commercial Court of Madrid has granted damages amounting to €2.6 million in a follow-on action based on the decennial reinsurance cartel. Although the claimant was not a customer of the reinsurance companies part of the cartel, the Commercial Court condemned the cartelists to pay damages in (...)
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The Spanish Supreme Court has overturned a judgment of the Audiencia Nacional, finding that the decision of the Spanish Competition Authority (“CNMC”) did not err in sanctioning a company that participated in the infringement actively and knowingly, even though it does not compete in the affected (...)
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In 2015, the Spanish competition authority (CNMC) fined ATFRIE and 12 refrigerated transport companies for colluding to fix prices in the refrigerated road transport sector in Spain from April 1993 to December 2012 (Decision of the CNMC of 25 June 2015, case S/0454/12, Transporte frigorífico). (...)
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The Audiencia Provincial of Barcelona has partially overturned eight judgments of two sections of the Juzgado de lo Mercantil of Barcelona which had awarded damages to several claimants in follow-on actions based on the Spanish envelope cartel case. The Audiencia Provincial partially accepts (...)
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The Audiencia Provincial of Madrid has overturned two judgments of two different Commercial Courts of Madrid which had dismissed the follow-on claims brought by alleged victims of the envelope cartel. The first instance courts had found that the claimants and their expert reports did not (...)
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The Audiencia Provincial of Valencia has partially upheld a first instance judgment awarding damages equivalent to 5% of the purchase price of the truck (totalling 3,985 euros) and quashed the judgment just in respect of the interests, finding that they should have been added from the purchase (...)
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The Audiencia Provincial of Barcelona has partially quashed the judgment of a Juzgado Mercantil of Barcelona which awarded collecting society SGAE € 115,398 corresponding to unpaid IP rights. The Audiencia Provincial found that the amount claimed by SGAE was inflated due to the application of (...)
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In a Decision of 14 March 2019 (case S/DC/0598/2016, Railway electrification and electromechanics), the Spanish Competition Authority (CNMC) decided for the first time to activate the prohibition to participate in public tenders, foreseen in the Spanish Public Procurement Act (Act 9/2017), for (...)
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In three recently issued judgments the Spanish Supreme Court reduced the fines imposed by the Spanish Competition Authority (CNMC) on eight undertakings active in the cotton ginning sector after excluding from the single and continuous infringement the conduct consisting of market foreclosure (...)
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Based on the European Commission Decision in the truck cartel case (Case AT.39824 — Trucks), a Commercial Court of Bilbao has awarded damages to an unnamed claimant who had bought 17 trucks in the period of the cartel from CNH INDUSTRIAL NV and IVECO S.P.A. which were among the companies fined (...)
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In two recently issued judgments the Spanish Supreme Court upheld two judgments of the Audiencia Nacional confirming the fines imposed by a decision of the Spanish Competition Authority (“CNMC”) on two managers in a case regarding anticompetitive agreements in the market for railway turnouts. In (...)
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The Spanish Supreme Court has annulled three paper waste cartel fines because the “incidental finding” doctrine was not applicable to the evidence that led to the initiation of proceedings and which was found in the inspections carried out in a different investigation. In November 2014 the (...)
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In one of the first rulings in Spain awarding damages based on the European Commission Decision in the truck cartel case (Case AT.39824 — Trucks), a judgment of 20 February 2019 of a Commercial Court in Valencia (Juzgado de lo Mercantil nº 3 de Valencia) found in favor of the claimant, an (...)
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In five judgments issued in December 2018 and published in the first quarter of 2019, the Spanish Supreme Court confirmed the judgments of the Audiencia Nacional quashing the CNMC Wooden Pallets cartel decision. In September 2014 the Spanish Competition Authority (the “CNMC”) had fined 24 wooden (...)
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By Judgment of 9 October 2018, issued in appeal n° 4509/2017, the Supreme Court has confirmed the Judgment of 27 May 2017 of the Audiencia Nacional (appeal nº 263/16) which decided on the appeal by British Telecommunications, PLC and BT España Compañía De Servicios Globales De Telecomunicaciones, (...)
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In a Judgement of 17 September 2018 (appeal n° 2922/2016), the Spanish Supreme Court has overturned the Judgement of 21 July 2016 of the Audiencia Nacional (appeal n° 482/2013) which had dismissed the appeal lodged by Repsol, S.A. against the decision of the former Spanish competition authority (...)
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In March 2013 the Spanish Competition Authority (the “CNMC”) fined several paper envelope manufacturers for a single continuous infringement of Articles 101 TFEU and 1 of the Spanish Competition Act from 1977 to 2010 consisting of (i) price fixing and market sharing agreements regarding envelopes (...)
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By Judgement of 24 July 2018, issued in appeal n° 2665/2016, the Supreme Court has confirmed the Judgement of 11 July 2016 of the Audiencia Nacional (appeal n° 343/14) deciding on the appeal by Nestlé España S.A. against the decision of the Council of the Spanish Competition Authority (the “CNMC”) (...)
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By decision of 7 May 2018 adopted in Case S/0584/16, Media Agencies, the Spanish competition authority (hereinafter ’CNMC’) imposed a fine on the agencies Carat España SAU, Inteligencia y Media, Media Sapiens Spain SL and Persuade Comunicación SA of fines totalling approximately EUR 7 million for (...)
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By decision of 4 July 2013, the Spanish Competition Authority (hereinafter ’CNMC’) imposed on the association Club de variedades vegetales protegidas (hereinafter ’CVVP’) a penalty of EUR 4 974 027 for an infringement of Article 1 of the Law on the Defence of Competition (hereinafter ’LDC’) and of (...)
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Une nouvelle Loi de la concurrence entrera en vigueur en Espagne le 1er septembre 2007. Cette nouvelle Loi comporte une importante réforme du régime espagnol de la concurrence, en le rapprochant davantage au Droit communautaire. Le système d’autorisation individuelle des accords est remplacé par un (...)
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