March 1997

Anticompetitive practices

 The Belgian Competition Council rules that a resale price maintenance system in the petfoods sector constitutes a prohibited anti-competitive practice (Laroy-Duvo)
Johnson & Johnson (Brussels)
Belgium 6 contributions 9513 visits
Description of the impugned case Laroy-Duvo imports petfoods from the USA and distributes these products in Belgium. It imposed fixed retail prices on its distributors. Its distributors were repeatedly and explicitly warned that if the retail prices are not respected, they will no longer be (...)

The UK Restrictive Practices Court holds that the Net Book Agreement between publishers under which the resale prices of books could be maintained by publishers is no longer in the public interest (Net Book Agreement)
Linklaters (London)
United Kingdom 15 contributions 7823 visits
Description of the impugned case Three orders of the Restrictive Practices Court in the 1960s declared that the Net Book Agreement under which the resale prices of books and certain related goods could be maintained by publishers were in the public interest. Following changes in the (...)

Unilateral Practices

 The EU Court of Justice states that an anti-pollution surveillance body governed by private law and entrusted by the public authorities in an oil port of a Member State is not considered an undertaking (Diego Cali)
European Court of Justice (Luxembourg)
Luxembourg 332 contributions 110826 visits
Case C-343/95 Diego Cali & Figli Sri ν Servizi Ecologici Porto di Genova SpA (SEPG)* Article 86 of the Treaty must be interpreted as not being applicable to anti-pollution surveillance with which a body governed by private law has been entrusted by the public authorities in an oil (...)

State Aid

 The French Administrative Supreme Court refers to the EU Court of Justice for preliminary ruling a case on tax deduction that is limited to expenditure for research carried out in the State of taxation (Baxter)
University of Aix-Marseille
France 132 contributions 450212 visits
Three pharmaceuticals companies engaged an action for the annulment of a State ordinance which established emergency measures aiming at the re-establishment of the balance of social security consisting in exceptional contributions to be paid by pharmaceuticals companies. One of these (...)

The EU Court of Justice determines that Member States are obliged to recover aid deemed unlawful by the Commission even where there may be ’legitimate expectations’ to the contrary, failure to do so would not comply with the principle of effectiveness (Alcan Deutschland)
Covington & Burling (Brussels)
Belgium 49 contributions 18314 visits
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Covington & Burling (Brussels)
Belgique 16 contributions 3599 visites
On 20 March 1997, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judged that Member States are obliged to revoke a decision granting unlawful aid that the Commission has declared incompatible and which it has ordered recovery (case C-24/95). The CJEU’s preliminary ruling was referred by (...)

The French Supreme Administrative Court considers that a copyright levy is not a State aid (Techni Import Professionnel / Syndicat des Industriels des Matériels Audiovisuels Electroniques)
Schmitt Avocats (Paris)
France 16 contributions 87355 visits
Since its inception, the principle of a copyright levy sitting on magnetic and numerical audio-visual supports into which copy works can be protected by copyright has confronted unions of performers, producers, copyrights owners and unions of manufacturers of these supports. One of the (...)