Jérémie Jourdan

Advocate General Juliane Kokott has proposed that the EU Court of Justice should find that competition authorities have the power to apply Article 102 TFEU to corporate transactions that are not reportable, and test under that provision whether the transaction as such constitutes an abuse of a (...)

On 18 May 2022, the EU General Court (GC) upheld the European Commission’s (EC) € 28 million fine imposed on Canon for gun-jumping in the context of a (somewhat unique) so-called warehousing structure. The judgment confirms that structures such as the one at issue are not allowed under EU law (...)

The French Competition Authority (’FCA’) has unconditionally authorized the acquisition of furniture retailer Conforama by Mobilux under the failing firm defence (’FFD’). Background On 8 July 2019, Mobilux group (’Mobilux’) announced its intention to acquire Conforama. Mobilux is the (...)

On 12 April 2022, the FCA fined the Compagnie Financière Européenne de Prises de Participation ("COFEPP") EUR 7 million for both (i) failure to notify its merger with Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits ("MBWS") and (ii) completion of the merger prior to the FCA’s approval. The FCA launched the (...)

The timing of this latest work in the impressive series of Concurrences projects could hardly have been more apt. 2020 was a bumper year, in both EU and national courts, for judgments involving judicial review of enforcement decisions in unilateral cases. At the same time, however, of the most significant unilateral cases pending before the General Court, three – Intel (on renvoi), Google (shopping) and Google (Android) are, at the time of writing, still in délibéré, with judgments expected later this year or next. Lawyers, economists and, above all, businesses at risk of being regarded as dominant, especially in the digital sector, will be looking to the judgments in these cases, each of which has its distinctive facts, to clarify the analytical framework for determining whether, and specifically why, unilateral conduct of a dominant undertaking crosses the – sometimes all too obscure – line into transgression. It, therefore, seemed to the Editors that, while waiting for these three judgments (and then, in all probability, the results of any appeals), many practitioners might find it useful to look back over recent years to see how the judicial review of decisions of competition authorities, both Commission and national (NCAs), has evolved.

On 25 March 2021, the European Court of Justice ("ECJ") dismissed all the appeals against the European Commission’s decision to fine Lundbeck and several other companies for entering into anti-competitive patent settlement agreements. The judgments largely repeat the position taken by the (...)

In the midst of the Homeric battle between Veolia and its takeover target, Suez, the European Commission rejects Suez’s gun jumping claim and provides further clarifications on the scope of the exemption to the standstill obligation in the case of two-step acquisitions encompassing a public (...)

The EC is seeking to investigate the mobile payments sector by launching two tenders by the end of October for the provision of expert reports on the sector. The first tender aims to “gather informed knowledge, in the form of a report, about the state and evolution of contactless and mobile (...)

A recent speech by the European Commission’s (the Commission) Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager (the Commissioner), on the 30th anniversary of the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR), praised it as having created "a better life for everyone", "saved customers billions of euros each (...)

This article has been nominated for the 2021 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. A recent speech by the European Commission’s (the Commission) Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager (the Commissioner), on the 30th anniversary of (...)

This article has been nominated for the 2018 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. On 6 September 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU" or "Court") essentially held in Intel that the European Commission ("Commission") (...)

The previous foreword for this publication was written in April 2011 by Ian S. Forrester, a long-time advocate of due process, and now a judge at the General Court of the EU. A few months later, the European Court of Human Rights adopted its landmark judgment in Menarini, ruling that, in (...)

Introduction On 10 March 2016, the European Court of Justice issued a landmark ruling annulling European Commission decisions requesting information from cement manufacturers, on the ground that the decisions did not sufficiently explain why the information requested was necessary . This (...)

Abstract : The Galp case provides helpful clarifications on the judicial review of competition law decisions : • The review of legality implies the review of all the elements of a Commission decision, including new evidence submitted for the first time by the applicant in the course of the (...)

This article has been nominated for the 2015 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. DG Competition of the European Commission just published its 5th patent monitoring report. It covers patent settlements entered into in 2013. Each year, the (...)

Introduction On 11 September 2014, the Court of Justice (ECJ) rendered its judgment in the Cartes Bancaires case . The ECJ quashed the General Court (GC) judgment for failing to correctly apply the notion of restriction by object. The Cartes Bancaires contains two key messages : first, the (...)

In merger control, gun-jumping refers to two distinct types of prohibited practices : failure to notify authorities of a transaction triggering merger thresholds, and implementing a notified transaction before receiving merger clearance from the relevant merger authority. Both behaviours can (...)

This article has been nominated for the 2014 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. Executive Summary On 9 December 2013, DG Comp published its fourth report on the monitoring in Europe of patent settlements. Like its predecessors, the (...)