Major events and policy issues in EU Competition Law

• Department of Law

The EUI Competition Law Working Group hosts a session with John Ratliff (WilmerHale).

John Ratliffhas been co-writing, editing and presenting an annual review of EU Competition law for many years. The idea for this workshop is to give an overview and highlight the key points in legislation, European Court case and European Commission decisions, and coming policy issues. His presentation is with a detailed paper prepared with colleagues in WilmerHale, covering from November 2021 to the end of October 2022 (published in the International Company and Commercial Law Review). Ratliff will also mention a few developments since. He does not cover mergers. 

Issues covered this year include:

• The Vertical Restraints Block Exemption and Guidelines, the Digital Markets Act, the EC Notice on Collective Agreements by the Solo Self-employed, and the chapter on sustainability in the EC’s draft Horizontal Guidelines.
• European Court judgments on (i) ne bis in idem under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (bpost andNordzucker); (ii) the EC’s Gazprom decisions; (iii) the rule of law and competition law in the context of allocating cases between the EC and a national competition authority (Sped-Pro); (iv) multiple appeals of theAir Freight and Optical Disc Drives cartel decisions; (v) Art. 102 TFEU and related procedural rulings (Google Shopping, Intel, Servizio Elettrico Nazionale, Qualcomm, and Google Android); and (vi) three European Court judgments on cartel damages issues. 
• EC decisions on cartels, other unlawful collusion on technical development, an ethanol benchmark, and forex trading. 
• Other EC Art. 101 TFEU decisions accepting market access commitments to an insurance pool; imposing fines for territorial restrictions and geoblocking in the supply of videogames; and another EC decision accepting telecoms network sharing. 
• Proposed commitments by Amazon in relation to Marketplace, Buy Box and Prime (now adopted).
• The EC\s sectoral review report on the Internet of Things.
• The wider policy context of competition law, notably the EC’s proposals for a Foreign Subsidies Regulation which have been adopted now.

The Competition Law Working Group is a forum where EUI members, external researchers, and practitioners working on antitrust law and economics discuss their work and interact with other scholars. All interested fellows, PhD researchers, professors and visiting academics are invited to participate.