On September 3, 2024, the European Union’s Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its highly anticipated judgment in the Illumina/Grail case (C-611/22 P and C-625/22 P) concerning the European Commission’s (EC’s) power to review...more
With its eagerly-awaited Illumina/Grail judgment on 3 September 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“ECJ”) closed a transatlantic saga and rejected the European Commission's ("Commission") extended...more
UNITED STATES - - Agencies Revisiting Consummated Mergers - What’s old is new again, as agencies are increasingly scrutinizing consummated mergers from years past. In May 2024, the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Antitrust...more
In a much-anticipated opinion, Advocate General Nicholas Emiliou (AG) has advised the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to set aside the General Court (GC)’s Illumina/GRAIL judgment. The AG is of the view that the European...more
The Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) establishes a new regime, enforced by the European Commission (EC), to regulate subsidies granted by non-EU countries to businesses active in the EU that could distort competition in EU...more
The European Commission (EC) recently adopted a package of measures with the aim of further simplifying its procedures for reviewing concentrations under the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR). The new rules entered into force on...more
The EU Court of Justice in the CK Telecoms1 ruling has addressed key questions of EU merger control, including the standard of proof for the European Commission to challenge a merger, the assessment of mergers below the...more
The European Commission (EC) has imposed a fine of around EUR432 million on genomics company Illumina for closing its acquisition of blood-based cancer test developer GRAIL before the conclusion of the EC’s merger control...more
Advocate General Anthony Michael Collins has proposed that the European Court of Justice uphold the General Court's Altice judgment. In his Opinion, he considered that the entering into certain types of pre-closing covenants...more
The long-awaited European Court of Justice's judgment in Towercast confirmed that national competition authorities (and national courts) can apply abuse of dominance rules to mergers that did not trigger EU and national...more
The European Commission has published a Frequently Asked Questions and Answers ("Q&A") document which aims to provide practical information with respect to the application of its recently revised Article 22 referral policy....more
ANTITRUST AND COMPETITION - Significant Changes to the Italian Antitrust Regime - On 5 August 2022, the Italian Parliament adopted law no. 118, which entered into force on 27 August 2022 (2021 Italian Competition Law). The...more
The EU General Court (“General Court”) has confirmed that the European Commission (“Commission”) can examine deals that do not trigger merger control thresholds in the EU or any EEA Member State[1] following a referral...more
In a recent high-profile judgment, the EU’s General Court confirmed that the European Commission (“EC”) can, upon referral by a national competition authority in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), review deals that do not...more
In a judgment dated 13 July 2022 (T-227/21), the General Court of the European Union (the “General Court” or the “Court”) upheld the decision of the European Commission (the “Commission”) whereby the latter accepted to assert...more
The EU General Court has issued the latest judgment in a suite of hard-line anti-gun-jumping cases – effectively confirming the European Commission’s 2018 decision imposing a record fine on Altice for breaching EU merger...more
On September 22, 2021, the European General Court issued its judgment upholding the decision by the European Commission (Commission) to fine Altice for gun-jumping in the acquisition of Portugal Telecom (PT) in 2015. The...more
Insurers Settle Irish Signalling Investigation by Agreeing to Compliance Programmes - On 20 August 2021, the Irish competition regulator Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) announced that six insurers...more
The European Commission ("EC") is shifting its approach with respect to the referral mechanism under Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation 139/2004 (the "EUMR") and now – at least in certain circumstances – encourages...more
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...more
On 26 March 2021, the European Commission (“Commission”) has, without any public consultation, published its new guidance on accepting merger referrals from Member States under Article 22 of the European Merger Regulation...more
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...more
The end of the Brexit transition period at 11pm on 31 December 2020 gives rise to significant changes to the application of antitrust and merger control rules in the UK. ...more
The European Commission’s ability to block mergers in oligopolistic markets is likely to be more restricted as it faces greater evidential hurdles in meeting the higher standard of proof imposed by the EU General Court, which...more
The UK's departure from the EU on 31 January has initiated an 11 month transition period, during which the application of EU competition law in the UK will remain largely unchanged. Thus the EU rules governing mergers will...more