To commemorate his first year in office as Competition Commissioner, Mr. Almunia and José openly discuss current and future competition policy issues.The full interview for World Competition is…
The European Commission's Phase II decision of 17 November 2010 concerning Syngenta's acquisition of Monsanto's sunflower seeds business raises a number of questions.
First, it took the European…
Lawyers do funny things to words. Sometimes, of course, they need to create a technical term to cover something that doesn’t exist in ordinary parlance. “Tort” is an obvious example. Yes, you can…
From December 2010 to February 2011, the FCO investigated a planned settlement between the parties to a tender dispute in the public transport sector. The FCO suspected that the planned settlement…
Perception is a problem in competition law. Many consumers and small businesses only understand what the subject might be about when a dispute is local, small-scale, potentially bad tempered and…
On February 10, Advocate General (AG) Sharpston issued her Opinion in the KME case (C-272/09 P - here), an appeal brought before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) against a judgment whereby the…
The German Federal Cartel Office ("FCO") fined three manufacturers of fire-fighting vehicles on February 10, 2011, imposing € 20.5 million in total. The FCO found that the companies had engaged in…
On the 2nd of December 2010 the Brazilian Senate approved the text of a new competition act.
The draft legislation has been pending in the Brazilian Parliament since 2005, when it was proposed by the…
The fairness of EU competition policy has been frequently challenged in the 2000s. It has been argued that the European Commission discriminates against small market companies in its merger…
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking to curb the use of so-called "most favored nation" (MFN) agreements -- a common business practice that the DOJ believes can sometimes result in…
