Insights

Brussels – March 20, 2023: Chambers and Partners has ranked four Crowell & Moring practice groups and six individual lawyers in the Chambers Europe 2023 guide. The rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and members of the legal community.

Brussels – April 13, 2022:  The Legal 500 Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) 2022 edition has recognized 11 practice areas and seven lawyers in Crowell & Moring’s Brussels office. The seven individual lawyers received 12 total rankings across all practice areas. The publication seeks to “highlight the practice area teams who are providing the most cutting edge and innovative advice to corporate counsel.”

On March 24, 2022, the European Union (EU) co-legislators (the European Parliament and the Council) reached political agreement on the final provisions of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The DMA aims at ensuring fair and contestable markets in the digital sector by imposing specific regulatory obligations on so-called “gatekeepers,” i.e., major digital platforms with a powerful and entrenched position which act as important gateways for businesses to reach end users. The European Commission (EC) will act as the central enforcer of the DMA. It will have extensive investigative powers and be able to impose hefty fines as well as behavioral and structural remedies (including the breaking up of companies). As an instrument of ex ante regulation, the DMA is designed to complement (not replace) the ex post enforcement of competition law, which is often viewed as too slow to effectively rein in the market power of “Big Tech” players.

Recent months have witnessed a flurry of activity from the European Commission in the field of telecommunications regulation. On December 18, 2020, the Commission adopted a new Delegated Regulation setting single maximum Union-wide voice termination rates, as well as an updated Recommendation on those relevant markets within the electronic communications sector that it still deems to warrant regulation. On February 4, 2021, the Commission opened infringement procedures against 24 Member States for failing to implement the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) into national legislation by the transposition deadline of December 21, 2020. And on February 24, it tabled a proposal for a new Roaming Regulation to replace the previous one of 2012 (Regulation No 531/2012). With these and other smaller initiatives, the Commission aims to complete a comprehensive overhaul of the European Union regulatory framework for the electronic communications sector, which it kickstarted in September 2016 with an ambitious legislative package intended to transform the EU into a “Gigabit Society” by 2025.

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.