Peter is a UK and Belgian qualified solicitor at Herbert Smith Freehills, based in Brussels, with over 10 years post qualified experience. His practice focuses on EU and UK competition law. He has extensive experience advising clients on a broad range of EU and UK competition law matters, including merger control, cartel investigations, market investigations, horizontal and vertical agreements, compliance programmes and draft legislation.
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On 6 May 2022 the UK government published its response to the July 2021 consultation on a new pro-competition regime for digital markets (see our blog post here), setting out its proposals for the design of a new regime to proactively shape the behaviour of the most powerful technology firms (...)
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The European Commission (“Commission”) is currently reviewing its Guidelines on Vertical Restraints (“Vertical Guidelines”) within the broader context of the review of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (“VBER”) and consulted on its proposals last year. It has now launched a further consultation (...)
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On 20 July 2021 the government published a consultation on its proposals for a new pro-competition regime for digital markets. The proposals are based on the recommendations set out in the Furman Review, the CMA’s final report of its market study into online platforms and advertising and the (...)
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On 25 March 2021, the Court of Justice of the EU (“CJEU”) dismissed the appeals by Lundbeck and five producers of generic medicines against the General Court’s (GC) judgments that upheld the Commission’s decision and the fines it had imposed in its first pay-for-delay infringement decision in 2013. (...)
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On 4 February 2021, the European Commission’s long-awaited Conference on Competition Policy Contributing to the European Green Deal took place. The conference was opened by Commission Executive Vice President and Commissioner in charge of competition policy, Margrethe Vestager. The European (...)
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Today, the German parliament passed the “Digital Competition Act” which is the 10th amendment to the Act against Restraints of Competition (ARC). The amended law – which will very likely enter into force January 2021 – will bring about significant changes to the German competition law landscape. (...)
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On 18 December 2020 the Commission published a further consultation on its proposals for a revised vertical agreements block exemption Regulation (VBER) and guidelines. The Commission’s steps to date, and conclusions of its evaluation phase, are set out in our HSF Notes post from 17 September (...)
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On 15 December the European Commission announced far-reaching proposals for regulation of the digital sector in the form of a Digital Services Act (DSA) and a Digital Markets Act (DMA). In summary the DSA contains new rules including on illegal content and transparency. It applies to all (...)
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The German FCO has not lost its appetite to take on major tech companies. Today, it has announced that it has initiated abuse proceedings against Facebook to examine the linkage between Oculus virtual reality products and Facebooks’ social network. The accusations against Facebook Facebook’s (...)
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On 8 December 2020 the CMA issued advice to the UK government on the design and implementation of a new pro-competition regime for digital markets. The advice was prepared by the Digital Markets Taskforce (DMT) formally launched by the CMA on 1 July 2020, following recommendations by the (...)
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The CMA has today (2 December 2020) launched a market study into the electric vehicle charging sector in the UK. The study will consider two broad themes : how to develop a competitive sector while also attracting private investment to help the sector grow ; how to ensure people using electric (...)
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On 7 February 2019, after almost three years of investigation, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office ("FCO") issued its long awaited decision on Facebook’s data collection practices. The FCO found that Facebook has a dominant position on the German market for social networks, and abused this position (...)
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On 8 September 2016 the General Court (GC) handed down its judgments in relation to the appeals brought by Lundbeck and a number of generic companies (Sun Pharma (Ranbaxy), Arrow, Generics UK, Merck and Xellia/Alpharma) against a European Commission (Commission) decision finding that the (...)
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