Competition law Blog

Official Blog of the European Competition and Regulatory Law Review (CoRe)

The CoRe Blog is the interactive online platform for up-to-date analysis of EU competition law developments. It’s the blog companion of the quarterly double-blind peer-reviewed European Competition and Regulatory Law Review (CoRe). The CoRe Blog fills in the gaps that a quarterly can’t address: immediate updates and analysis of breaking news in EU competition.

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5. November 2020  |   Case Digests by Kiran Desai

2019:356 Recylex SA and Others v European Commission
Competition Blogs - car 1564300 1920
Court General Court Date of ruling 23 May 2019 Case name (short version) Recylex SA and Others v European Commission Case Citation T-222/17 ECLI:EU:T:2019:356 Key words Competition — Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Market for lead-acid car battery recycling — Decision finding an infringement of Article 101 TFEU — Coordination of purchase prices — Fines — Point 26 of […]
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5. November 2020  |   Case Digests by Kiran Desai

2019:354 KPN BV v European Commission
Competition Blogs - cyberspace 2784907 1920
Court General Court Date of ruling 23 May 2019 Case name (short version) KPN BV v European Commission Case Citation T-370/17 ECLI:EU:T:2019:354 Key words Competition — Concentrations — Netherlands market for television services and telecommunications services — Full-function joint venture — Decision declaring the concentration compatible with the internal market and the EEA Agreement — Commitments — Relevant market — […]
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5. November 2020  |   Case Digests by Kiran Desai

2019:283 Powszechny Zakład Ubezpieczeń na Życie S.A. v Prezes Urzędu Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów
Competition Blogs - castle 2688938 1920
Court Court of Justice Date of ruling 3 April 2019 Case name (short version) Powszechny Zakład Ubezpieczeń na Życie S.A. v Prezes Urzędu Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów Case Citation Case C-617/17 ECLI:EU:C:2019:283 Key words Reference for a preliminary ruling — Competition — Article 82 EC — Abuse of a dominant position — Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 — Article 3(1) — […]
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5. November 2020  |   Case Digests by Kiran Desai

2019:232 Qualcomm and Qualcomm Europe v Commission
Competition Blogs - electricity 1288717 1920
Court General Court Date of ruling 9 April 2019 Case name (short version) Qualcomm and Qualcomm Europe v Commission Case Citation T-371/17 ECLI:EU:T:2019:232 Key words Competition — Market for baseband chipsets used in consumer electronic devices — Administrative procedure — Article 18(3) and Article 24(1)(d) of Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 — Decision requesting information — Obligation to state reasons — […]
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12. October 2020  |   Features by Alexandr Svetlicinii

Two hats on one head: Competition authorities and FDI screening
Competition Blogs - brexit 4100607 1920
The Regulation 2019/452 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union (EU FDI Screening Regulation) was adopted on 19 March 2019 and became fully operational on 11 October 2020. Its adoption was preceded by the heated discussion on the need to reform the EU merger control framework, which according to some stakeholders, should be able […]
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22. September 2020  |   Features by Daniel Mandrescu

Epic v Apple (2): market power and foreclosure in the app distribution market(s)
Epic, Fortnite, Apple, battle royale, competition law, antitrust, district court, monopolization, monopoly, essential facilities, refusal to supply, tying, abuse of dominance
Epic’s battle against Apple has been extensively covered in media in the past month. This attention is undoubtedly due to Epic’s explicit move against Apple’s terms and conditions as well as Apple’s fierce reaction to cut all ties with Epic. Epic’s legal dispute is, however, not only against Apple but also against Google who has removed Epic from its Play […]
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4. September 2020  |   Features by Friso Bostoen

Epic v Apple (1): introducing antitrust’s latest Big Tech battle royale
Epic, Fortnite, Apple, battle royale, competition law, antitrust, district court, monopolization, monopoly, essential facilities, refusal to supply, tying, abuse of dominance
Mid-August 2020, a series of events unfolded in a short period of time. They may prove a watershed moment for the role of antitrust in regulating digital markets. It started when gamers playing Fortnite on their iPhone were suddenly faced with a new choice screen when buying in-app currency: What changed is that Epic, the developer of Fortnite, introduced an […]
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27. August 2020  |   Features by Daniel Mandrescu

Slack v. Microsoft – more than just another tying case
Competition Blogs - microsoft 4417280 1280
The recent wave of claims against digital giants appears to have completed a circle with Slack’s recent claim against Microsoft for allegedly abusing its dominant position by tying Microsoft Teams to the Office 365 software package. One cannot deny the resemblance between this claim and the previous tying cases Microsoft had faced, however, upon closer look Slack’s claim is much […]
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16. June 2020  |   Features by Virgilio Mouta Pereira

Hitting the mark or setting the bar too high? The “merger gap” and prospective analysis in the aftermath of CK Hutchison/Telefónica
connections
by Miguel Marques de Carvalho and Virgílio Pereira On 28 may 2020, the General Court (“GC”) handed down a landmark judgment whereby it overturned the European Commission’s (“Commission”) decision which had prohibited the four-to-three acquisition of Telefónica UK (“O2”) by Hutchison 3G UK (“Three”). This blogpost provides an overview  of the main points raised by the ruling and offers some […]
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9. June 2020  |   Features by Alice Rinaldi

Re-imagining the Abuse of Economic Dependence in a Digital World
Mobile apps image
As proven by the recent consultation on the Digital Services Act, the European Union is actively pursuing new solutions to cope with the challenges posed by digitalization. This post proposes a new approach to conducts taking place in the context of online commercial relationships, such as refusals to access platforms or datasets. Namely, it suggests that the European legislator should […]
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Anja Naumann

Blog Editor

LL.M., PhD, currently legal trainee at the Higher Regional Court of Berlin.

>> Anja’s CoRe Blog posts >>

Daniel Mandrescu
Blog editor Assistant Professor EU competition law, Europa Institute, Leiden University >> Daniel's CoRe blog posts >>
Friso Bostoen

Blog Editor

Assistant Professor of Competition Law and Digital Regulation, Tilburg University

Friso Bostoen is an assistant professor of competition law and digital regulation at Tilburg University. Previously, he was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. He holds degrees from KU Leuven (PhD, LLM) and Harvard University (LLM). Friso’s research focuses on antitrust enforcement in digital markets. His work has resulted in numerous international publications, presentations, and awards (including the AdC Competition Policy Award 2019 and the Concurrences PhD Award 2022). In addition, Friso edits the CoRe Blog and hosts the Monopoly Attack podcast.

>> Friso’s CoRe Blog posts >>

Nelly Stratieva

Head of Editorial Department and Data Protection Officer

Responsible for EStAL (European State Aid Law Quarterly), EPPPL (European Public Private Partnership Law Review) and CoRe (European Competition and Regulatory Law Review). Overseeing Lexxion Publisher’s privacy and data protection compliance.

Parsa Tonkaboni
Picture Rita Paukste
Rita Paukste

Former Blog Editor

Senior Associate, Motieka & Audzevicius PLP, Vilnius

>> Rita’s CoRe Blog posts >>

23. January 2020  |   Features by Friso Bostoen

The antitrust books you should’ve read in 2019 [part 2]
Competition Blogs - stanislav kondratiev 6pO3QFkk7hQ unsplash
In a CoRe Blog post earlier this month, I introduced the first three ‘antitrust books you should’ve read in 2019’. In this post, I take a look at the next and final three books. Completing the list involved a tiny bit of cheating (including a book that was published in 2018 and another one that doesn’t strictly concern antitrust), but I guarantee that none […]
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10. January 2020  |   Features by Friso Bostoen

The antitrust books you should’ve read in 2019 [part 1]
Competition Blogs - stanislav kondratiev 6pO3QFkk7hQ unsplash
While the past year may not have been spectacular on all fronts, it was a very good one when it came to the publication of antitrust books. New editions of authoritative textbooks were published, including the 7th edition of Jones & Sufrin (the 9th edition of Whish & Bailey was released in 2018). New entrants also dared challenge the incumbents: Lianos, Korah & Siciliani released their own competition […]
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27. November 2019  |   Features by Daniel Mandrescu

Lessons and questions from Google Android- Part 2 – Tying in two-sided markets, anti-competitive effects and extra-territorial remedies
Android with cookies
The very lengthy and complex Google Android decision provides us with lots of material for discussion. In the first part of this discussion the matter of the definition of the relevant market was addressed. Although it may appear that this is the only key issue in the case, the decision covers several other issues, which deserve equal (if not more) attention. […]
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12. November 2019  |   Features by Friso Bostoen

Amazon cases on the move: Bundeskartellamt closes proceedings while European Commission opens formal investigation
online shopping cartoon
The 17th of July has been quite the day for Amazon, at least when it comes to antitrust. Firstly, the German Competition Authority (Bundeskartellamt) has closed its abuse of dominance proceedings against Amazon in return for concessions from the online marketplace. Secondly, the European Commission announced that it was opening a formal investigation into possible anti-competitive conduct by Amazon. This blog post takes a closer […]
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12. November 2019  |   Features by Friso Bostoen

Abuse of relative dominance in the platform economy: a French court finds Amazon’s contracts with third-party sellers significantly imbalanced
Competition Blogs - p
Two years ago (before Amazon became entangled in a patchwork of investigations by competition authorities), Reuters reported: ‘France files complaint against Amazon for abuse of dominant position’. The news report did not garner a lot of attention. More surprisingly, neither did the recent judgment of the Paris Commercial Court on the complaint. As the judgment offers insight into several pressing questions presented by platform competition […]
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29. October 2019  |   Features by Daniel Mandrescu

Lessons and questions from Google Android- Part 1 – the market definition
Two Androids
On the 19th of September the Google decision was finally made public after a long waiting period, which in hindsight may seem less surprising given its length (327 pages!) and extensive scope of analysis. As in the case of Microsoft, the decision provides us with lots of material for discussion. The decision covers the market definition as well as the […]
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17. October 2019  |   Features by Rita Paukste

Competition law and public procurement – an easy catch for competition enforcers?
Competition Blogs - competition law
If you ask what the common recent trends are among EU Member States in competition law enforcement, the answer surprisingly (or not) would be related not to digital economies but to public procurement. Lately national competition authorities had quite a fruitful harvest investigating competition law infringements in public procurement markets. Among them are, for example, the French, Italian, Dutch, Hellenic, […]
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26. September 2019  |   Features by Friso Bostoen

‘We have reached “peak cloning” in Silicon Valley’: when does copying your competitor’s product become anticompetitive?
same sneakers with different price
‘We have reached “peak cloning” in Silicon Valley’, read a recent tweet by Jeff Morris Jr. (Tinder’s director of product). ‘There are no rules anymore’, the author continued, ‘if you build a product that works, Amazon or Facebook will copy it.’ The tweet was prompted by the apparent copying by Amazon of Allbirds. Allbirds is a brand famous for its merino wool […]
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19. September 2019  |   Features by Lennard Michaux

Crossroads in EU Competition Law: green light or stop sign for non-economic goals?
Competition Blogs - alex kalinin 8bs Kz8ACdM unsplash
On the 6th of September, Reuters broke the news that the U.S. Department of Justice launched an antitrust investigation in the voluntary agreements on emission standards between four automakers and the State of California. This probe should be viewed in the light of a larger bureaucratic conflict. As part of its general deregulatory program, the Trump Administration is planning to roll back the heightened […]
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6. September 2019  |   Features by Daniel Mandrescu

Ex-ante competition law enforcement and online platforms – a tool with no (clear) instructions
wood working tools
The interest of national competition authorities in the matter of online platforms and competition law is becoming increasingly visible. In the case of the Dutch competition authority this growing interest has recently resulted in a call for introducing ex-ante enforcement tools in the context of online platforms. Although the idea may indeed be constructive for the adaption of the current […]
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Do you want to share your analysis of a competition law topic? We invite you to submit your post on, for example: recent European, national or international judgments or legislation with relevance to EU competition law; new developments, publications, hot topics in EU competition law. The recommended length of the post is 500-2,000 words incl. references (endnotes). Your analysis will be published under the category ‘Guest Blog’.

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