This article provides an overview of gun jumping enforcement by the courts and the competition authorities in 2020 and 2021. After specular sanctions in the past years, defining a clear dissuasive policy against any infringement of merger control rules, 2020 and 2021 confirmed the stringent approach of the authorities. One important finding is the increase of the number of cases which penalized gun jumping. It was also observed that authorities, not bound by time barred constraints, don’t hesitate to pursue “cold cases”. Nevertheless, reducing the 2020 and 2021 developments to the confirmation and detail of the pre-existing framework would provide an incomplete picture. The enforcers have also decided to extend their playing field, or at least to take full advantage of their existing powers, as illustrated by the Illumina/Grail case. The future European Courts rulings challenging the recent decisions will be key to follow.
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