On 7 January 2022, the Belgian Competition Authority approved the merger of the Port of Antwerp and the Port of Zeebrugge, now becoming the unified Port of Antwerp-Bruges.
On 9 December, the European Commission published draft Guidelines on the application of EU competition law to collective agreements on the working conditions of solo self-employed people providing services.
In case C-882/19 (Sumal v Mercedes Benz Trucks España), the Court of Justice of the European Union (“the Court of Justice”) addressed the question of the liability of a subsidiary for an infringement of article 101 TFEU committed by the parent company. The Court of Justice allows victims of an infringement of competition law to seek compensation from subsidiaries of the parent company held liable for the infringement
La directive européenne portant sur les pratiques commerciales déloyales B2B au sein de la chaîne de distribution agroalimentaire vient d’être transposée en droit belge par une loi publiée ce 15 décembre 2021 au Moniteur belge
The Market Court has annulled the Belgian Competition Authority’s decision that imposed a fine of EUR 859,310 on Caudalie for breaching competition law by imposing minimum resale prices and restricting active
Pierre Goffinet and Roman Spangenberg, Associate in our Competition and Regulatory practice, contributed to the 2022 edition of @Lexology Getting the Deal Through : the Cartel Regulation in Belgium.
Apple this week announced a significant policy change in launching ‘Self Service Repair,’ making Apple parts, tools, and manuals available to individual consumers for the first time (starting with iPhones 12 and 13).
During the COVID-19 pandemic and for approximately two years, the EU Commission and the National Competition Authorities have stopped carrying out dawn raids. In the meantime, the EU Commission and the EU Courts further specified their views
Dawn raids are unannounced searches via which a competition authority verifies whether its suspicions that competition law has been violated are indeed justified. The searches are traditionally done in the offices of the company or professional association under investigation. Not only business premises but also company cars can be searched. However, a competition authority also has the power to conduct searches in private homes (and private cars) of e.g. the managers, directors or other personnel members of the company or association. For this they must have a reasonable suspicion that documents which are relevant for the investigation are located in those places. Moreover, they require a prior court authorisation for doing such searches.
On 10 September 2021, the EU watchdog for competition, the Directorate-General Competition (“DG COMP”) of the European Commission, published the main results of the public consultation launched in 2020
