EU Competition Law Newsletter
Below are links to EU Competition Law Newsletters that Cleary publishes each month.
2022
November
Highlights
Revised Market Definition Notice Confirms Established Framework with Emphasis on Global and Digital Markets and the Commission’s Margin of Discretion
- On November 8, 2022, the Commission published its draft Revised Market Definition Notice for consultation in view of a formal adoption in the third quarter of 2023. The revision of the current 1997 Market Definition Notice was initiated in April 2020, with a particular focus on improved analysis of global and digital markets. In addition to guidance on these issues, the Revised Notice largely confirms the principles set in the Original Notice, integrates as additional background recent EU decisional practice and preserves the Commission’s margin of discretion in market definition assessments.
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State Aid: Court of Justice Clarifies Limits for Multinational Tax Deals in Fiat Chrysler
- On November 8, 2022, the Court of Justice set aside the General Court’s judgment in the Fiat State aid case. In doing so, the Court of Justice effectively annulled the Commission decision which found that the tax ruling granted to the Fiat Chrysler group by the tax authorities of Luxembourg was an unlawful tax break of €20–30 million. The Court of Justice affirmed the supremacy of national law in corporate taxation and rejected the Commission’s attempt to develop an EU-wide arm’s length principle as a standard of review for Member States’ tax decisions under State aid rules. The judgment is a setback for the Commission’s policy of using State aid rules to target allegedly unfair tax deals for multinational companies.
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Court of Justice Backs the Creation of ex novo Evidence in Private Enforcement Disclosure
- On November 10, 2022, in a judgment on a request for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of Article 5(1) of Directive 2014/104 and the scope of its rules on evidence production, the Court of Justice confirmed that national courts could require defendants to disclose evidence that did not exist at the time of the court proceedings—by compiling or classifying knowledge, information or data in their possession—rather than to merely produce documents that already exist. In this instance, the applicants were seeking price data to quantify the artificial price increase caused by a cartel. The Court of Justice considered that the need to ensure the effective implementation of EU competition law could justify this interpretation, provided that national courts limited disclosure of ex novo evidence to necessary and proportionate requests.
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2021
2020
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Quarterly Reports
2018
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2015
2014
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2012
2011
2010