Background On 26 October 2023, the Swedish Competition Authority (the “SCA”) issued its first fining decision under the Swedish Unfair Trading Practices Act (the “UTP Act”), which implements the 2019 EU directive on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural a...
The European Commission (the “Commission”) recently decided to withdraw its guidance on the referral mechanism in Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation (“EUMR”). This is a consequence of the Illumina/Grail judgement, where the European Court of Justice (the “CJEU”) held that the Commission may not...
On 31 October the European Commission (the “Commission”) fined the global pharmaceutical company Teva €462.6 million for abusing its dominant position by delaying competition for its multiple schlerosis (MS) blockbuster medicine, Copaxone. According to the Commission, Teva both artificially extended...
Earlier this year, International Flavors & Fragrances (“IFF”) was fined €15.9 million for obstructing an unannounced inspection (commonly known as “dawn raid”) carried out by the European Commission through the deletion of Whatsapp messages exchanged with a competitor. This underlines the import...
Corruption and unlawful influence undermine fair competition in the market, discouraging legitimate companies from investing in business development. To combat these challenges, the Swedish Government has introduced the Action Plan Against Corruption and Unlawful Influence for 2024-2027 (Sw. Handlin...
Introduction and background On 8 February 2024, the European Commission (the “Commission”) adopted a revised Market Definition Notice (the “Notice”). Defining a relevant market is a necessary step when assessing the market power of an undertaking in merger control and antitrust cases. This provides...
On 20 December 2023, the Swedish Competition Authority (“SCA”) issued a decision against a manufacturer of kitchen and bathroom faucets and showers for having fixed the prices and terms for the online resale of its products, i.e. resale price maintenance (“RPM”). The fine of MSEK 16.9 (approximately...
Following two sector inquiries the Swedish Competition Authority (the SCA) announced in October last year that it considered the existing competition rules to be inadequate and not sufficient to ensure competitive and well-functioning markets in Sweden. The SCA therefore requested new and more flexi...
Competition law and State Aid rules are more often than you might think related to the world of professional sports. And now the spotlight has turned to another field of EU law. On 12 August 2023, La Liga, the national professional football league in Spain, announced in a press release that it has l...
On 4 July 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered a Grand Chamber ruling affirming the national competition authorities’ power to investigate privacy breaches when conducting abuse of dominance investigations under Article 102 TFEU. Big tech firms will now have extra incentives to...
On 29 June 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered a preliminary ruling in the Super Bock case on the legality of resale price maintenance in distribution agreements. It appears that the last bastion of the ‘formalistic approach’ once adopted by the EU Courts has now fallen. In it...
A New Approach for Assessing Alleged Abuse of a Dominant Position under Article 102 TFEU? On 27 March this year the European Commission launched a Call for Evidence seeking feedback on the intended adoption of Guidelines on exclusionary abuses of dominance, prohibited by Article 102 TFEU. Exclusiona...