Axel Gu­ter­muth, Brus­sels
The ar­ti­cle ex­plains the re­vi­sed EU Block Ex­emp­ti­on Re­gu­la­ti­on for re­se­arch and de­ve­lop­ment agree­ments (Re­gu­la­ti­on No 1217/2010) that en­t­e­red in­to force on 1 Ja­nu­a­ry 2011. The re­vi­sed Re­gu­la­ti­on is re­le­vant for the com­pe­ti­ti­on law as­sess­ment of agree­ments bet­ween un­der­ta­kings pro­vi­ding for co­ope­ra­ti­on in re­se­arch and de­ve­lop­ment (R&D) and the com­mer­cia­liza­t­i­on of R&D...

Da­ni­el von Bre­vern, Düssel­dorf
It is ge­ne­ral­ly as­su­med that the crea­ti­on of a joint ven­ture re­qui­res a no­ti­fi­ca­ti­on to the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on on­ly if the joint ven­ture qua­li­fies as a "full-func­tion joint ven­ture" wi­t­hin the mea­ning of Ar­ti­cle 3(4) Re­gu­la­ti­on 139/2004. Ho­we­ver, the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on has ad­op­ted a dif­fe­rent ap­proach un­der its "Con­so­li­da­ted Ju­ris­dic­tio­nal No­ti­ce". Ac­cor­ding to the no­ti­ce, the full-func­tio­na­li­ty con­di­ti­on does not ap­p­ly to the ac­qui­si­ti­on of joint con­trol ove

Ro­man In­derst, Frank­furt a.M. / Ul­rich Schwal­be, Ho­hen­heim
This ar­ti­cle deals with the quan­ti­fi­ca­ti­on of car­tel da­mages. Da­mages that we­re in­flic­ted by a car­tel are cal­cu­la­ted with re­spect to a so-cal­led coun­ter­fac­tu­al. Ty­pi­cal­ly, this is do­ne by com­pa­ring the out­co­me un­der the car­tel with that in a mar­ket that is com­pa­ra­ble along key di­men­si­ons, but whe­re the mar­ket out­co­me was not di­s­tor­ted by...

Al­f­red Dittrich
The ar­ti­cle deals with questi­ons of ju­di­ci­al pro­tec­tion re­la­ting to the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on no­ti­ce on le­ni­en­cy, which plays an im­portant ro­le in un­co­ver­ing and fi­ning car­tels. The first part ex­plo­res ge­ne­ral questi­ons of ju­di­ci­al pro­tec­tion con­cerning the va­li­di­ty and the ap­p­li­ca­ti­on of the no­ti­ce on le­ni­en­cy. The se­cond part deals with le­gal questi­ons con­cerning the trans­fer or...

Ul­rich Soltész, Brus­sels
In re­cent ye­ars the con­for­mi­ty of the EU an­ti­trust fi­ning sy­stem with the prin­ciple of due pro­cess has be­en in­cre­a­sin­gly cal­led in­to questi­on. Even though the re­cent ECHR judgment in Me­na­ri­ni seems to lend so­me sup­port to the ad­vo­ca­tes of the pre­sent sy­stem, the ca­se law on due pro­cess con­ti­nue to dis­play in­con­si­sten­cies. In par­ti­cu­lar, the va­rious judgments on ru­le...

Alex­an­der Karst, München
The Eu­ro­pean Court of Ju­sti­ce (ECJ) poin­ted out in its de­ci­si­ons "Ak­zo No­bel" and "Ge­ne­ral Quími­ca" that a par­ent com­pa­ny is lia­ble for the an­ti-com­pe­ti­ti­ve be­ha­viour of its daugh­ter com­pa­ny pro­vi­ded that the daugh­ter com­pa­ny is a whol­ly-ow­ned sub­si­dia­ry of the par­ent com­pa­ny. In this spe­ci­fic ca­se of a 100% share­hol­ding in the daugh­ter com­pa­ny, the par­ent com­pa­ny can ex­er­cise a de­ci­si­ve in­flu­ence...

St­ein / Fri­ton / Hut­ten­lauch, Ber­lin
The ar­ti­cle deals with the links bet­ween an­ti­trust law and pu­blic pro­cu­re­ment law, in par­ti­cu­lar with re­spect to com­p­li­an­ce and self-clea­ning. An­ti­trust in­frin­ge­ments may ju­sti­fy an ex­clu­si­on from par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on in a pu­blic con­tract award pro­ce­du­re in Ger­ma­ny, but the­re is still de­ba­te on the de­tail. A re­cent de­ci­si­on by the Ver­ga­be­kam­mer Nie­der­sach­sen of 24 March 2011 sup­ports the pos­si­bi­li­ty of a dis­cre­tio­na­ry ex­clu­si­on of an un­der­ta­king on grounds of

Car­sten Krüger, Brus­sels/Kai­sers­lau­tern
Car­tel mem­bers are joint­ly and se­ver­al­ly lia­ble for the da­ma­ge cau­sed by their il­le­gal prac­tices un­der the ge­ne­ral prin­ci­ples of tort law. A vic­tim of the in­frin­ge­ment may the­re­fo­re seek the ent­i­re da­ma­ge from any one or any com­bi­na­ti­on of the car­te­lists who cont­ri­bu­ted to the in­ju­ry. Thus, the questi­on of cont­ri­bu­ti­on among the tort­fea­sors ari­ses, es­pe­cial­ly...

Hans-Jürger Rup­pelt, Ber­lin
In re­cent ye­ars, the Fe­deral Car­tel Of­fice had to as­sess se­veral mer­gers in the food re­tail in­du­stry. Th­ree of the­se ca­ses ha­ve on­ly be­en clea­red on the ba­sis of re­me­di­es sin­ce the re­gu­la­tor ca­me to the con­clu­si­on that on a coup­le of re­le­vant mar­kets do­mi­nant po­si­ti­ons would be crea­ted or streng­the­ned. The­se de­ci­si­ons rai­se the questi­on of ade­qua­te de­fi­ni­ti­ons of re­le­vant...

Ro­mi­na Pol­ley, Ham­burg / Sil­ke Heinz, Köln
The sett­le­ment pro­ce­du­res of the two aut­ho­ri­ties dif­fer in va­rious as­pects in prac­tice, in­ter alia be­cau­se of the dif­fe­rent le­gal and pro­ce­du­ral frame­works. Whi­le the Com­mis­si­on acts on the ba­sis of a spe­ci­fic and very de­tai­led re­gu­la­to­ry sett­le­ment packa­ge, in prac­tice the sub­stan­ce of a sett­le­ment is most­ly not ne­go­tia­ble, or on­ly to a li­mi­t­ed extent....