Focus Antitrust - 18 January 2017

In The News

ECJ rejects appeal alleging discrimination against cartel participant that withdrew from settlement procedure

The European Court of Justice has dismissed the Roullier group’s appeal against the European Commission’s animal feed phosphates cartel decision.  The Court did not consider that the European Commission had penalised the group on account of its withdrawal from the settlement procedure, nor was it bound by the range of fines communicated during the settlement procedure.  Click here.

EU

Articles 101 and 102

• The General Court has dismissed an appeal by Topps Europe Limited against a decision of the European Commission to reject its complaint in relation to the licensing of intellectual property rights for World Cup and Euro football tournament stickers and trading cards.  Click here.

UK

CMA

• The CMA has announced that it has accepted undertakings in lieu of a reference for the completed acquisition by Novomatic UK Ltd of Talarius Limited.  The CMA considered that the merger may lead to competition concerns in the supply of gaming machine products to the public in 5 local areas and the undertakings involve divestments in each of these areas.  Click here. 
• The CMA has formally cleared the merger of children’s toymakers VTech and LeapFrog.  This confirms the CMA’s provisional findings that were issued in December.  Click here.
• The CMA has announced that it is considering undertakings in lieu of a reference offered by Mastercard and VocaLink.  The undertakings are intended to reduce the cost to LINK of switching from VocaLink to alternative suppliers of infrastructure services.  Click here.

This article was written by Paul Stone. For more information, please contact Paul on +44 (0)20 7203 5110 or at paul.stone@crsblaw.com.