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Digital Markets Act
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13/05/2024
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Commission designates Booking as a gatekeeper and opens a market investigation into X
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The European Commission has today designated under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Booking as a gatekeeper for its online intermediation service Booking.com and decided not to designate X Ads and TikTok Ads. In parallel, the Commission has opened a market investigation to further assess the rebuttal submitted in relation to the online social networking service X.
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Court
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08/05/2024
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Caixabank v Commission
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The Commission takes note of the judgments of the General Court upholding a 2013 Commission’s State aid decision. In its 2013 decision, the Commission concluded that a Spanish scheme for the purchase of ships involving leasing and financing through tax relief to be partly incompatible with EU State aid rules. The Commission found that the scheme conferred a selective advantage on economic interest groupings and their investors over their competitors. It therefore ordered Spain to recover the incompatible aid.
On 2 February 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union largely upheld the Commission decision, while annulling it insofar as it only identified the economic interest groupings and their investors as beneficiaries of the aid.
In today’s judgments, the General Court ruled that remaining applications for annulment against the Commission’s 2013 decision were without object as regards the question of the identification of the indirect beneficiaries of the scheme and dismissed the remainder of the actions for annulment.
The judgments also confirm that the Commission was competent to ask Spain to set aside private contractual clauses which allowed beneficiaries of the aid scheme to shift the burden of recovery to third parties.
See also judgments Gas Natural v Commission as well as Duro Felguera v Commission.
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08/05/2024
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Ryanair v Commission (Condor - Restructuring aid)
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The European Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the General Court, which annuls the Commission’s decision of 26 July 2021, approving restructuring aid in favour of the German airline Condor. In particular, the General Court held that the Commission should have opened an in-depth investigation to ascertain whether the State would receive a reasonable share from future value gains of Condor. Furthermore, according to the General Court, the doubts that the Commission should have had necessarily affect its assessment of the scope of the measures to limit distortions of competition foreseen in its decision and that are applicable to Condor. The Commission will study the judgment carefully and reflect on possible next steps.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).
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Events
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16/05/2024
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"This is why we need competition policy" : watch the debate
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On May 16th, the fifth episode of the Markets for People series (titled “This is why we need competition policy”) took place in Aarhus, Denmark. The event was moderated by Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age and Competition at the European Commission
In case you missed it, you can watch the recorded debate (original version in Danish. Subtitles in English are available.)
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05/06/2024
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Fifty Years of the Brussels-New York Connection
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The conference will look at transatlantic relations in competition policy and enforcement from three vantage points: our long and rich history, recent developments, and the implications of competition control for broader policy areas in Europe and the US.
Registrations are open for a limited time only!
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28/06/2024
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Competition in Virtual Worlds and Generative AI
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The European Commission is pleased to announce its upcoming workshop on competition in virtual worlds and generative AI, scheduled for 28 June 2024. This event serves as a follow-up to the call for contributions launched in January 2024, which sought insights into the state of competition within these two sectors.
Registrations are open!
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Publications
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Antitrust in Labour Markets
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Wage-fixing and no-poach agreements generally qualify as restrictions by object under Article 101(1) TFEU
While the pro-competitive effects of such agreements must be considered if demonstrated and significant, net efficiencies are uncertain and less restrictive means of achieving them are generally available
Most of the cases are likely to be dealt with by National Competition Authorities due to the geographic scope
However, the Commission is actively investigating cases in this sector and will remain coordinated within the European Competition Network.
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Open calls for tender
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18/04/2024 - 31/05/2024
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Competition Policy Capacity Building Programme for Africa
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The European Commission has launched its first pre-call for tender seeking experts to support the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS / CEDEAO), thereby taking the first steps in the implementation of its €20 million Competition Policy Capacity Building Programme for Africa.
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New legislation
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