Carmen Verdonck is a partner at the ALTIUS law firm, Brussels, heading the competition law department. She was admitted to the Brussels Bar in 1996 and advises a wide range of domestic and multinational clients about all aspects of Belgian and EU competition law, including merger control, cartel cases, distribution networks, technology transfer agreements, abuse of dominance, and State aid matters. Carmen also regularly represents clients in antitrust cases before the Belgian and European competition authorities and courts. Carmen has been appointed an Assessor in the Belgian Competition Authority and Maître de Conférences at the Liège University, teaching in the LLM in European Competition and IP law. Carmen is Past President and Board member of the International League of Competition Law / Ligue International du Droit de la Concurrence (LIDC) and board member of the Association pour l’Etude du Droit de la Concurrence (AEDC). She is also a member of the Belgian Franchise Federation’s legal commission and the advising commission installed under the law on pre-contractual information obligations in commercial co-operation agreements. Carmen holds a Bachelor’s degree of the University of Namur, a Master’s degree from the University of Leuven and a LLM in European law from the University of Bristol.
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Introduction On 23 December 2022, the Brussels Court of Appeal (the Market Court) rejected Carrefour Belgium’s application for the suspension of the Belgian Competition Authority’s (BCA’s) decision of 9 November 2022, which authorised the concentration between Intermarché AB (ITM) and (...)
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In 1974 the Court of Justice of the EU (“CJEU”) concluded in its famous Walrave and Koch case that sport is subject to EU law as far as it constitutes an economic activity. In the Meca-Medina case of 2006 the Court confirmed that sporting regulations that have economic effects could be analysed under competition law. However, even though the European Commission has also on several occasions explicitly stated that competition law does apply to the sports sector, the enforcement of competition rules in antitrust cases in the sports industry was not the focus of the European Commission’s competition law enforcement at the start of this millennium.
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In the telecommunications sector, recent years have seen an important increase of cases concerning abuse of dominant position brought before either the European Commission or the national competition authorities. In this respect, one of the recurrent issues in these cases is the so-called (...)
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In Spring 2008, the government of the Brussels-Capital Region (Région de Bruxelles-Capitale/ Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest) issued an invitation to tender for the creation and implementation of an automatic bicycle-hire system for public use in the Brussels region. Three tenders were (...)
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On 15 of April 2008 the Belgian Competition Council (Conseil de la Concurrence/Raad voor de Mededinging) (“BCC”) adopted its decision in a case about price recommendation by a Belgian veterinarian association (hereinafter referred to as the “veterinarian decision”). Around the same time, the (...)
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Decision On 26 March 2008, the Belgian Prosecutor refused a request for preliminary measures made by Bofar NV (‘Bofar’). In December 2007, Bofar had filed a complaint against nine pharmaceutical companies for infringing Articles 81 and 82 EC Treaty and their Belgian equivalents, Articles 2 (...)
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On 15 December 2006, the Brussels Court of Appeal ruled on the relationship between the merger control rules and the general rules on restrictive practices. The court’s judgment followed a request for a preliminary ruling to the Court from the Commercial Court of Namur. Background The (...)
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Interview réalisée par Carmen Verdonck, Avocate associée, ALTIUS, Bruxelles. ********** After graduating with a Master in Law at the KU Leuven in 1972, you obtained a PhD at the KU Leuven with Professor Dr W. van Gerven on legal remedies and ailing industries in 1978, and you have always (...)
