Céline Verney is a Senior Associate at Hogan Lovells Paris. She advises clients on all aspects of competition law. Experienced in merger control, she has taken part in the defense of the first company ever fined by the European Commission for implementation of a transaction before antitrust clearance (so called "gun jumping"). Céline also assists clients in international cartel cases prosecuted by the European Commission and other agencies throughout the world, in antitrust cases before the French Competition Authority, as well as in follow-on damages actions. She advises clients on State aid issues, including before administrative courts, and on their commercial and distribution agreements. Graduated from King’s College London and Sciences Po, Céline is a member of the Paris bar.
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The French road signs cartel case has resulted in significant volume of litigation before French administrative courts, which led to the award of very high damages (in view of the size of the markets concerned and of the amount of the fines imposed by the French Competition Authority). Based on (...)
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Reviewing a well-established decision-making practice (See in particular the letters from the Minister of the Economy: C-2007-91 to the board of Vitalia Développement 2, concerning a merger in the sector of diagnostics and care in healthcare institutions; C-2007-80 of 24 July 2007 to the board (...)
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The Commission has recently decided on two transactions in the pharmaceutical sector, both of which have been cleared subject to divestitures: the acquisition of Allergan by Abbvie and the acquisition of Pfizer’s consumer health division by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Although they concern very (...)
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On 12 November 2019, the European Commission cleared the acquisition of the operator Bonnier Broadcasting by the Swedish telecommunications group Telia. Both operators are active in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway. While Telia provides fixed and mobile telecommunications services and (...)
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In the context of the acquisition of sole control of Darty by Fnac, which was authorised by the French Competition Authority by a decision of 27 July 2016Fnac had undertaken to sell six stores in Paris and the Paris region before 1 August 2017. However, for three of these stores, namely the (...)
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On 1 October 2019, the European Commission authorised the merger between two global manufacturers of flat-rolled aluminium products: Novelis, the US subsidiary of the Indian group Hindalco, and Aleris, a US group also specialising in the production of semi-finished aluminium products. Both have (...)
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After Altice, it is therefore Canon’s turn to be fined several million euros for having implemented an acquisition before it was notified and authorised by the European Commission. While the fine imposed on the Japanese company is disproportionate to that imposed on the cable operator (124.5 (...)
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Warehousing – or portage – transactions, which consist in parking the target with an interim buyer in view of its onward sale to the ultimate acquirer, are no exceptions to the prohibition of gun jumping: this is, in a nutshell, the conclusion drawn by the European Commission in its decision of (...)
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By a decision of 17 April 2019, the Competition Authority authorised the change from sole to joint control over Luderix, which operates the Picwic toy store. Jellej Jouets thus acquired 49% of the target’s capital and voting rights, with the remaining 51% held by the Mulliez joint venture, which (...)
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On April 12, 2019, the European Commission has approved the acquisition by Nidec, a Japanese company active in the electric motors and motor products sector, of Embraco, a subsidiary of Whirlpool based in Brazil and specialised in the production of refrigeration compressors. Refrigeration (...)
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110 million fine imposed on Facebook for providing inaccurate information in connection with its acquisition of WhatsApp (Eur.Comm., August 30, 2017, Facebook/WhatsApp, M.8228, p. 8228).The European Commission, which has made the violation of procedural rules in merger control one of its new (...)
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On November 7, 2018, the Commission approved a concentration whereby the two German car manufacturers Daimler and BMW planned to pool their mobility service businesses, including in particular their car sharing services. The two German car makers’ project consists in the creation of six (...)
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On 4 May 2018, the European Commission approved the acquisition by United Technologies Corporation (’UTC’) of the whole of Rockwell Collins, after a phase I investigation but subject to important structural remedies. UTC is a provider of high-technology products and services for the building and (...)
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It took a year and a half to publish the European Commission’s decision to authorize, after a phase 2 review and without conditions, the merger between two major players in the optical industry, Italy’s Luxottica, a supplier of eyeglass frames and sunglasses, which owns the Ray-Ban, Oakley and (...)
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