Giorgio Motta

1. Summary The European Union and the United Kingdom have each proposed modifications of their antitrust rules on distribution. The proposals diverge significantly on common distribution practices, creating legal challenges for distribution agreements caught by both sets of rules. Dual (...)

The European Commission (EC) has proposed legislation to curb M&A, public procurement and market conduct by foreign-subsidized companies that may distort the European Union’s internal market. New requirements include : Mandatory notification of acquisitions where the target’s EU turnover (...)

The new Article 22 EU Merger Regulation (EUMR) Guidance released by the European Commission (EC) enables the EC to review any acquisition, even those that do not qualify for notification under national (or EU) merger control rules. Summary The new guidance indicates that the EC will actively (...)

Takeaways More than 50 countries now have the discretion to conduct competition reviews of mergers below mandatory notification thresholds, and the European Commission, EU member states, the U.K. and others are using this authority more frequently. As a consequence, companies whose merger might (...)

The U.K.’s Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has released new merger assessment guidelines that confirm the U.K. regulator’s intensified approach to merger control. The guidelines largely codify the CMA’s recent output, which includes record-high numbers of prohibitions and deal (...)

Commissioned by the U.K. government to review its antitrust regime, Conservative Member of Parliament John Penrose’s “Power to the People” report proposes streamlined, modest changes rather than wholesale reform to the current regime. The report’s recommendations are outlined below : Merger reviews (...)

The European Union (EU)-U.K. Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) governing post-Brexit trade relations between the U.K. and the EU includes provisions regulating EU/U.K. antitrust enforcement and cooperation effective January 1, 2021 : Anticompetitive practices and mergers. The TCA provides (...)

Following its review of a series of global deals in the digital markets space, the U.K.’s Competition & Markets Authority (the CMA) has launched a consultation on revised merger assessment guidelines (the draft guidelines) codifying its evolving practice in the digital sector and addressing (...)

Sustainability issues are increasingly high on the list of competition policy priorities both at the European Union and member state levels. The European Commission (EC) and national competition authorities are actively rethinking how competition policy can better support the transition to (...)

The European Commission (EC) has proposed far-reaching new powers to investigate and sanction foreign subsidies that have allegedly distortive effects on the European Union’s (EU) internal market. The proposals include : (i) mandatory notification of acquisitions, including potentially minority (...)

The European Commission’s (EC) June 2020 white paper proposing wide-ranging controls over foreign-subsidized companies’ access to Europe’s internal market has received fresh impetus. In a report issued earlier this month, the European Union’s (EU) audit body faulted the EC for a hitherto (...)

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads rapidly around the world, and countries take unprecedented measures to contain the spread of the disease, businesses are increasingly struggling with the economic impact of this crisis. While airlines, tour operators and event businesses have been among the (...)

Antitrust-Related Considerations Collaborations With Competitors Companies seeking to collaborate with competitors in response to the COVID-19 crisis must keep in mind, as the Department of Justice has recently cautioned, that the antitrust laws remain in effect, and agreements among (...)

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published “Guidance on the Functions of the CMA Under the Withdrawal Agreement” (Guidance), which sets out the regulator’s approach to merger and competition cases during the Brexit transition period that will run until at least through December (...)

A recent decision by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), Tobii AB (publ) v. Competition and Markets Authority, confirms a deferential standard for the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in its merger prohibitions. The CMA is widely regarded as a thought leader among merger control (...)

Introduction On September 24, 2019, the EU General Court (General Court) issued its long-awaited judgments in relation to the appeals brought against two European Commission (EC) decisions of 2015 concluding that tax rulings granted by The Netherlands and Luxembourg conferred illegal state aid (...)

The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued its first antitrust decision since obtaining competition law powers four years ago. The decision is a controversial one. It sets the FCA up as a strict enforcer on the type of information that competing investors can share when making (...)

On November 23, 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union (Court of Justice) dealt a blow to the European Commission’s (Commission) power to close antitrust investigations with commitment decisions, with its ruling in Case C-547/16 Gasorba et al. v. Repsol. The Court of Justice ruled that (...)

On 26 October 2017, the European Commission (the Commission) opened an in-depth investigation into UK statutory rules that exempt certain financing income earned by foreign subsidiaries of UK corporate taxpayers from UK tax. The Commission’s investigation will focus on whether the UK Controlled (...)

On September 6, 2017 ,the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) quashed the 2014 judgment of the General Court (GC) that upheld a fine of €1.06 billion ($1.5 billion) on Intel Corporation Inc. (Intel) for abusing a dominant market position by implementing loyalty rebates based on (...)

On 10 May 2017, two years after launching its e-commerce sector inquiry on 6 May 2015, the European Commission published its final report (Final Report) on the inquiry. The inquiry was opened in the framework of the Commission’s broader Digital Single Market strategy, which was aimed at (...)