Latest posts
Commission accepts commitments by GDF Suez to boost competition in French gas market
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The Commission has adopted another Article 9 decision, this time to end the GDF Suez case. Article 9 decisions have become a very central tool used by the Commission to end complex investigations. They do not conclude whether there is...
More on the implications for competition lawyers of the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty
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My Howrey colleagues April Pelin and Stephen Mavroghenis prepared a nice note on the impact of the entry force of the Lisbon Treaty on our every day life as competition lawyers, which I reproduce below. I apologize for the formatting...
Renumbering of the provisions of the EC Treaty
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With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty today, competition lawyers and economists will have to get use to the numbering of the competition law provisions of the EC Treaty. For instance, Article 81 and Article 82 EC have...
Joaquin Almunia confirmed as the new Competition Commissioner
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The news is now official. Almunia is a Spanish national who currently is the Commissioner in charge of economic and monetary affairs. His official bio is reproduced below. Some of you might be concerned with his background as a trade...
Rachel Brandenburger joining the Antitrust Division of the US DoJ
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It has been announced that Rachel Brandenburger, one of the leading competition partners at Freshfields, will resign from her firm to join the antitrust Division of the DoJ in January 2010 to serve a special adviser on international matters, reportin...
Great news on the Qualcomm case
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After a four year long investigation, the European Commission announced earlier today (MEMO/09/516) that it has decided to close the formal antitrust proceedings it had launched against Qualcomm in October 2007 as well as the press releases being iss...
Commission confirms sending of Statement of Objections to Standard & Poor's
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Interestingly, the Commission seems to go after another company for "excessive pricing". I have never been convinced that competition authorities should regulate prices for a number of serious reasons. moreover, exploitative cases can lead...
Decision of the European Ombudsman closing his inquiry into the Intel against the European Commission
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The very important decision of the EU Ombudsman on the Intel's complaint against the European Commission for procedural irregularities has now been published. The decision does not look good for the Commission. Whether or not this will have an impact...
42nd Lunch Talk of the GCLC – 26 November 2009
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The 42nd Lunch Talk on Recent trends in the Commission’s Review of Airline Mergers will take place on 26 November 2009. The speakers: Daniel Boeshertz from DG COMP and Sven Voelcker from WilmerHale. The registration form can be downloaded here.
Conference on the New Frontiers of Antitrust in Paris
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The Revue Concurrences, the leading French competition law journal, is organizing is annual conference on the theme of "The New Frontiers of Antitrust" on 15 February 2010 in Paris. The programme is very interesting. Speakers will include C...
Douglas Melamed to become Intel's new General Counsel
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Another interesting development at Intel, which has now decided to appoint Doug Melamed as its new General Counsel. Melamed is one of America's finest antitrust lawyers and a former assistant attorney general for antitrust in the DoJ. He is certainly...
Breaking news: AMD and Intel Announce Settlement of All Antitrust and IP Disputes
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Here is the joint release published this morning: SUNNYVALE/SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Nov. 12, 2009 – Intel Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) today announced a comprehensive agreement to end all outstanding legal disputes between the...
NY AG Cuomo Files Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel
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New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against the computer chip manufacturing giant Intel, accusing the company of engaging in a “systematic worldwide campaign of illegal, exclusionary conduct to maintain its monopo...
Talk on Standardization and Antitrust
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Paul Seabright (Toulouse) and I have been invited to give a talk tomorrow morning in the context of the Philippe Nasse seminar organized by the French Ministry of Economy, Industry and Labour and the French Competition Authority on the complex...
SSRN: TOP 10 Papers for Antitrust & Regulated Industries Journals (September 4, 2009 to November 3, 2009)
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RankDownloadsPaper Title13453Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization Paul Ohm, University of Colorado Law School, Date posted to database: August 17, 2009 Last Revised: September 10, 20092290Why the Google Bo...
Competition 2009 Summit in Brussels
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I have been asked to speak at the Competition 2009 Summit in December. Here is a brief description of this event: Premier Cercle, in association with The Wall Street Journal Europe, is organizing the Competition 2009 summit on December 3...
Dynamic Competition in Antitrust Law
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Greg Sidak and David Teece have just published a most interesting paper on dynamic competition and antitrust, which I highly recommend to all those interested in the subject. Abstract: The September 2009 announcement that the Federal Trade Commission...
The Decision of the Commission of 13 May 2009 in the Intel Case: Where is the Foreclosure and Consumer Harm
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This new paper challenges the Decision of the European Commission against Intel, which I believe suffers from a number of serious flaws. Abstract: Abstract: On 21 September 2009, the European Commission published a provisional non-confidential versio...
Abuse of Dominance in the Postal Sector – The Contribution of the Guidance Paper on Article 82 Ec
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Please find hereafter the link to the paper I have co-author on the potential implications of the Commission's Guidance Paper for the postal sector: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1435362 Abstract: On 3 December 2008, the Commissi...
Most Downloaded Antitrust Law Professors of the Past Year
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Sounds like I have lost my crown as the most downloaded professors. The bulk of Mark Lemley's publications are of course in IP, but he also has some terrific antitrust papers. Here is the new ranking based on SSRN downloads:...
