Simon Vande Walle is a professor at the University of Tokyo. He was a case handler at the European Commission - DG Comp, in the Mergers - Telecoms, IT and Media unit. Previously, he was a research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science at the University of Tokyo. He obtained his doctoral degree in law from Kyushu University, Japan, and, prior to that, practiced as a lawyer at the Brussels office of Linklaters from 2003 until 2008. He is originally from Belgium and studied law at Leuven Catholic University, Belgium (LL.B., LL.M.), Université Jean-Moulin Lyon III, France (Erasmus), Kyushu University, Japan (LL.M., LL.D.) and Georgetown University Law Center, U.S. (LL.M.). He is the author of Private Antitrust Litigation in the European Union and Japan – A Comparative Perspective (Maklu Publishers, 2013). A full list of publications can be found at http://www.simonvandewalle.eu
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SMITHS GROUP / MORPHO DETECTION: MAINTAINING SECURITY THROUGH INNOVATION * In a nutshell: Smiths’ acquisition of Morpho Detection brought together two leading suppliers of the equipment used to detect explosives and narcotics. This equipment is omnipresent at security checks in airports and is (...)
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LIBERTY GLOBAL / BASE: FIWING IT FIRST IN THE BELGIAN MOBILE MARKET* In a nutshell: Liberty Global/BASE entailed the acquisition of a mobile network operator by a mobile virtual network operator. The transaction prompted an in-depth investigation and was ultimately cleared with a fix-it-first (...)
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I. Introduction In a judgment of 27 June 2011, the Tokyo District Court ordered nine oil companies to pay a total of 8.4 billion yen (104 million dollars at the time) to the Japanese State in restitution. The oil companies had violated the Japanese Antimonopoly Act by engaging in bid-rigging (...)
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The views expressed in this case summary are those of the author, not those of any organisation. Yamato, Japan’s largest door-to-door delivery service, sought injunctive relief against the low prices of a competitor, Japan Post. In a judgment of 19 January 2006, the Tokyo District Court (...)
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What is it with air travel and merger litigation? Mergers in this sector have certainly contributed their fair share to the case law on merger control. Think of Airtours (T-342/99), easyJet (T-177/04), Ryanair (T-342/07), Niki Luftfahrt (T-162/10), Lufthansa (T-712/16) and American Airlines (...)
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Acquisitions by large digital platforms are all the rage. Competition authorities subject these deals to stricter scrutiny than before, but, in spite of this, Big Tech companies continue to expand their ecosystems by acquiring targets left and right. Google’s acquisition of Fitbit is (...)
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The European Competition Network (ECN), which is well-known as an effective mechanism of cooperation for the application of articles 101 and 102 TFEU, is not extended to merger rules. However, the need for cooperation in this area encouraged the Commission and the national competition (...)
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In May 2020, the General Court rendered its long-awaited judgment on the appeal against the Commission’s decision to prohibit Hutchison’s acquisition of O2, a deal that would have combined two of the UK’s four mobile network operators. The judgment is a resounding victory for the applicant, (...)
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Synthomer and Omnova may not exactly be household names, but both companies are major producers of so-called specialty chemicals. These are products such as polymers, which are ubiquitous in our everyday life, as they are used as an ingredient in various finished products, including consumer (...)
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Background The good old cable network. Originally rolled out to transmit TV channels to households in the 80s, it has become the pipe through which millions of Europeans access fast internet or “broadband”. Little wonder that cable networks are eagerly coveted by telecom companies and, when they (...)
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On 13 May 2019, the Belgian competition authority cleared Telenet’s acquisition of De Vijver Media, subject to remedies. The acquisition gave Telenet – a Belgian cable operator – sole control over De Vijver Media, a broadcaster of TV channels. TV channels are an input for cable operators, who (...)
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