Competition authorities around the world typically place considerable weight on parties’ internal documents when assessing the potential effects of a merger. Such documents, many of which can pre-date the companies’ decision to enter into a transaction, are often regarded as conveying the merging (...)

The Commission Decisions In February 2017, the Commission initiated proceedings against Asus, Denon & Marantz, Philips and Pioneer following information obtained during the e-commerce sector inquiry. The Commission’s report had identified resale price maintenance as an area of concern, and (...)

On 18 April 2018, the Competition and Markets Authority issued updated guidance on the appropriate amount of penalties to be imposed for infringements of competition law in the UK. This replaces the previous guidance issued by the Office of Fair Trading (which the CMA replaced in 2014) and (...)

On 6 September 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU" or "Court") essentially held in Intel that the European Commission ("Commission") cannot consider rebates, and in particular loyalty rebates, as per se illegal. Rather, the Commission needs to show that a specific rebates (...)

The European Court of Human Rights (the “ECtHR”) has ruled in the Vinci case that the circumstances surrounding the electronic removal of documents and computer files during a dawn raid violated two companies’ privacy rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) . The case (...)

On 9 April 2014, the European Commission adopted its new Energy and Environmental State Aid Guidelines (the “EEAG”) which will take effect from 1 July 2014 onwards, replacing the Environmental State aid Guidelines (“EAG”) from 2008, which did not cover State aid to the energy sector. The EEAG set (...)