January 2006

Competitive Injury and Price Discrimination in the United States* In Volvo Trucks North America, Inc. v. Reeder-Simco GMC, Inc., the Supreme Court provided guidance on whether, under the Robinson-Patman Act, a manufacturer may offer one dealer better prices than another dealer when those (...)

The Robinson-Patman Act and Consumer Welfare: Has Volvo Reconciled them?* The Robinson-Patman Act is the black sheep of antitrust. Unlike the other antitrust laws, its fundamental goal is not to preserve competition in order to benefit consumers, but to limit competitive rivalry in order to (...)

In a brief decision, the Portuguese Autoridade da Concorrência imposes a € 195.000 fine to the local association gathering shipping agents (Associação dos Agentes de Navegação de Portugal, hereinafter “AGEPOR”) for breach of Article 81 EC. As was the case in previous decisions already (...)

On January 10, 2006, the Supreme Court will hear Dagher v. Texaco, Inc., an antitrust case that presents the Court an opportunity to clarify issues of substantial importance to the formation and operation of joint ventures. The question presented is whether two joint venture partners, both of (...)

On 20 January 2006 the Cyprus Commission for the Protection of Competition (hereinafter C.P.C.), in one of its many decisions concerning the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (hereinafter CYTA), found the latter liable for infringing Section 6(1) of the Protection of Competition Law of 1989 (...)

Summary The Office of Communications (“Ofcom”) has decided to close an investigation under Articles 81 and 82, and equivalent UK national competition law, into the price of telephone services to hospital patients. Patientline plc (“Patientline”) and Premier Telecom Contracts Limited (...)

Use of "Numéro vert", "Numéro Azur" and "Numéro Indigo" commercial designations by competitors of France Télécom: Following an agreement between France Télécom and Cégétel, the provisions of which have been extended to cover all operators, the Conseil de la concurrence has decided to close the (...)

The present judgment is the result of the judicial review of the decision of the President of the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (hereafter: “OCCP President”) on August 18, 2004. By this decision, the OCCP President declared that by restricting entrepreneurs from offering (...)

On January 9th, 2006, the Competition and Consumer Protection Court (hereafter,“CCPC”) upheld the decision of the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (hereafter, “OCCP President”) condemning ZAiKS Authors’ Association (hereafter, ZAiKS) for abusing its dominant (...)

In January 2006 the Lithuanian Competition Council (“CC”) continued its onslaught on the alleged discriminatory practices of the former or still existing state monopolies (as reported earlier, in 2005 the national oil refinery received a record fine of approx. EUR 9.27 for violation of Article (...)

The interim measures decision commented here was rendered on January 3, 2006 by the Polish Competition Authority - the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (hereafter, “OCCP President”) - in order to prevent plausible serious and hard-to-remove threats to competition (...)

President of the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (Urzad Ochrony Konkuencji i Konsumentów) (UOKIK), 3rd January 2006, Case n° RKT-03/2006, Marquard Media Poland, KTK Sport, ‘Przeglad Sportowy’ Press Release Upon the motion of the company Katowickie Towarzystwo (...)

The facts An agent selling mobile phones lodged a complaint to the Court of First Instance of Athens against its supplier claiming that the latter’s decision to terminate their agreement constituted an anti-competitive unilateral behaviour breaching the relevant national competition law (...)

Facts of the case The litigation in question arose between a wholesale cigarette manufacturer and one of its distributors in Greece. Since the early 90s the plaintiff had a small business selling cigarettes on bulk to other local shops. In 1996 the defendant terminated unilaterally the (...)

The operation On 4 January 2006, the Finnish Competition Authority cleared, in Phase II decision, a merger between SOK and Suomen Spar Oyj. These have overlapping operations in: (i) the retail market for daily consumer items; and (ii) the market for the procurement of daily consumer items (...)