Insights

Brussels and Doha – April 1, 2024: The Legal 500 Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) 2024 edition has recognized 16 practice areas and 11 lawyers in Crowell & Moring’s Brussels and Doha offices. The 11 individual lawyers received 18 total rankings across the 16 different practice areas.

On March 7, 2022, a law amending the Belgian Competition Act and transposing the ECN+ Directive (EU Directive 2019/1) was published. Notable changes include the introduction of merger filing fees (EUR 52,350 for the normal procedure and EUR 17,450 for simplified notifications), fines for violating the notification obligation, and new provisions concerning cooperation with other national competition authorities, judicial remedies, dawn raids and leniency. The amendments enter into force on March 17, 2022.

On March 30, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it voted in unanimous, bipartisan fashion (4-0) to file a complaint to block Illumina’s proposed acquisition of Grail. Illumina sells next-generation gene sequencing (NGS) equipment and consumables, while Grail is developing a multi-cancer early detection test that uses Illumina’s NGS platform. The FTC alleges a vertical theory of harm whereby the merger would give Illumina both the incentive and ability to disadvantage Grail’s multi-cancer testing competitors by raising their costs for, or by foreclosing them from, accessing Illumina’s must-have NGS technology. This is the first time in recent memory that the FTC is challenging a vertical merger in court; it represents the FTC’s first challenge under newly issued Vertical Merger Guidelines; and it is the first suit filed under Acting FTC Chair Rebecca Slaughter—all of which demonstrates that the FTC is likely to take a more aggressive approach to vertical merger enforcement for at least the next four years.

On May 11, 2016, the European Commission prohibited the proposed acquisition of Telefónica UK (O2) by Hutchison 3G UK (Three). The transaction would have been a 4:3 merger involving the number 2 and number 4 U.K. mobile network operators. The merged entity would have had a non-dominant share of around 40% and network sharing arrangements with both its remaining competitors (BT/EE and Vodafone). The Commission’s decision was based, in particular, on the elimination of Three as “an important competitive force” that offered the most competitive prices in certain market segments and 4G at no extra cost. The Commission made no finding of coordinated effects.

Wij hebben het genoegen u uit te nodigen voor de officiële voorstelling van het boek “Concentratiecontrole in België” van Karel Bourgeois op 8 december 2022.