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The Covington View

The European Commission’s guidance on passing-on damages calculation

By Louise Freeman & Daniel Muheme on August 19, 2019

The European Commission (“EC”) has recently published Guidelines for national courts on how to estimate the share of the overcharge caused by cartels which was passed on by direct purchasers to their customers (“Passing-on Guidelines”). The Passing-on Guidelines provide an extensive practical overview of the applicable legal context, the relevant economic theory and quantification methods for the concrete harm caused to claimants in litigation.…

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Covington Alert: DOJ to Credit Compliance Programs and Consider Deferred Prosecution Agreements in Cartel Cases

By Covington Competition on July 26, 2019

On July 11, 2019, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim announced fundamental and sweeping changes to the Division’s approach to corporate compliance policies that will bring it into line with other Department of Justice branches. In every case, the Division will now consider compliance programs in deciding whether to file criminal charges and in calculating fines. Also, when a company faces charges, Division prosecutors may now consider proceeding by way of deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) rather…

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Advanced Competition Law Conference London – Joint Presentation on Recent EU Cartel Enforcement

By Covington Competition on June 26, 2019

On 14 May, Johan Ysewyn and Dirk Van Erps (DG COMP) gave a presentation on recent EU cartel enforcement at the annual Advanced EU Competition Law Conference in London. Their presentation covered developments in enforcement, policy, and court review between May 2018 and May 2019. There was not much cartel enforcement by the European Commission (“EC”) during the time period covered by the review. The EC issued only one settlement decision in Occupant Safety Systems …

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Covington Alert: Implications and Questions Arising From The Supreme Court’s Antitrust Ruling in Apple, Inc. v. Pepper

By Geoffrey Kalantari on May 24, 2019

On May 13, 2019, the Supreme Court (“the Court”) announced its 5-4 decision in Apple, Inc. v. Pepper, permitting iPhone users to proceed with an antitrust suit against Apple alleging that it monopolized the retail market for iPhone apps. The Court emphasized that it decided only the threshold issue, ruling that the iPhone users were not barred by federal law from bringing the suit, and did not address the merits of the claims. The Court…

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Covington Alert: English Competition Appeals Tribunal to Reconsider £14 Billion Class Action Against MasterCard

By Geoffrey Kalantari on May 14, 2019

On 16 April 2019, England’s Court of Appeal ruled that the Competition Appeals Tribunal (the “CAT”) had erred in rejecting certification of former financial ombudsman Walter Merricks’ class action against MasterCard, for £14 billion. As a result, the CAT will now reconsider whether to certify the class. The decision has lowered the bar that will need to be cleared in this and future class actions in order to achieve certification. Louise Freeman and Harry Denlegh-Maxwell consider…

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The European Commission publishes report on EU loan syndication and its impact on competition in credit markets

By Johan Ysewyn & Daniel Muheme on April 29, 2019

On 5 April 2019, the European Commission (“EC”) published a report – prepared by Europe Economics at the request of DG COMP – on EU loan syndication and its impact on competition in credit markets (the “Report”). The Report describes the functioning of the syndicated loan business and seeks to assess whether there are potential competition concerns with regard to syndicated loans in leveraged buy-outs (“LBOs”), project finance (“PF”) and infrastructure projects (“INFRA”). Syndicated loans…

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Economic successors can be held liable for damages resulting from Article 101 TFEU infringements

By Melissa Van Schoorisse on March 26, 2019

On 14 March 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) issued a preliminary ruling in Case C-724/17 Vantaan kaupunki v Skanska Industrial Solutions Oy and Others, holding that the principle of economic continuity applies in actions for damages resulting from infringements of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”). The judgment followed a preliminary reference from the Supreme Court of Finland, submitted in the course…

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German court clarifies questions on FRAND offers for licensing of standard essential patents

By Kim-Simone Janutta on March 18, 2019

In the last months, the Landgericht Düsseldorf (District Court of Düsseldorf – LG Düsseldorf) has handed down 10 judgments dealing with standard essential patents (SEPs) in the smart phone sector. While not all judgments have been published yet, cases 4a O 17/17 and 4b O 4/17 answered a number of fundamental questions as to how German courts will apply the CJEU’s case law for FRAND licensing of SEPs by patent pools. …

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EU Court Confirms the Annulment of the European Commission’s Decision Prohibiting the UPS/TNT Transaction

By Miranda Cole & Jérôme de Ponsay on March 11, 2019

On 16 January 2019, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) rejected the European Commission’s (“Commission”) appeal in Commission v. UPS. The judgment followed Advocate General Kokott’s Opinion of July 2018, and upholds the 2017 judgment of the General Court (“GC”) annulling on procedural grounds the Commission’s decision prohibiting the acquisition of TNT by UPS.…

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An aid scheme or not? The GC annuls the Commission’s decision on Belgium’s system of excess profit tax rulings

By Johan Ysewyn, Sophie Bertin & Geoffrey Kalantari on March 5, 2019

On 14 February 2019, the General Court (“GC”) annulled the European Commission’s (“Commission”) decision of 11 January 2016 declaring Belgium’s system of excess profit rulings as an aid scheme incompatible with the Internal Market. The Commission had ordered the Belgian authorities to recover around € 700 million from at least 35 companies that had benefited from the excess profit exemption through tax rulings. The GC considered that the excess profit exemption was not a “scheme”…

Covington Competition

The Covington View

Blog Authors

The European Commission’s guidance on passing-on damages calculation

Covington Alert: DOJ to Credit Compliance Programs and Consider Deferred Prosecution Agreements in Cartel Cases

Advanced Competition Law Conference London – Joint Presentation on Recent EU Cartel Enforcement

Covington Alert: Implications and Questions Arising From The Supreme Court’s Antitrust Ruling in Apple, Inc. v. Pepper

Covington Alert: English Competition Appeals Tribunal to Reconsider £14 Billion Class Action Against MasterCard

The European Commission publishes report on EU loan syndication and its impact on competition in credit markets

Economic successors can be held liable for damages resulting from Article 101 TFEU infringements

German court clarifies questions on FRAND offers for licensing of standard essential patents

EU Court Confirms the Annulment of the European Commission’s Decision Prohibiting the UPS/TNT Transaction

An aid scheme or not? The GC annuls the Commission’s decision on Belgium’s system of excess profit tax rulings

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