A blog about competition law and policy
Over the weekend, it became clear that UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse after a hectic weekend of negotiations brokered by Swiss regulator FINMA to safeguard Switzerland’s banking system and attempt to prevent a crisis spreading across global markets. The news followed the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the rescue of First Republic Bank … Continue reading Bank bailouts – The antitrust approach
“Formalistic”, “reductionist”, “selective and unbalanced or even deficient”. Advocate General Juliane Kokott did not mince her words in last week’s Opinion on the General Court’s judgment in CK Telecoms, in which she asks the Court of Justice to annul the judgment and refer the case back to the General Court. An AG Opinion is an … Continue reading Three/O2 – EU merger control test clarified? (And lions in Regent’s Park)
Today the General Court handed down its hotly anticipated judgment in the Illumina/GRAIL merger, deciding that the European Commission has jurisdiction to review the merger. This judgment is hugely consequential, as it confirms that EU Member States have the power to refer mergers to the Commission even when those mergers do not meet the national … Continue reading Legitimately expected: Commission may review Illumina/GRAIL deal
The heads of the two main US antitrust regulators, Jonathan Kanter (US Department of Justice) and Lina Khan (US Federal Trade Committee), each recently expressed an uneasiness about the lack of antitrust scrutiny of private equity (PE) deals. Mr Kanter told the Financial Times that PE firms aim to “hollow out or roll up an … Continue reading Demystifying the antitrust case against private equity
The UK Supreme Court issued an interesting judgment yesterday involving the question whether the CMA should cover a party's litigation costs when that party successfully appeals the CMA’s decision under the Competition Act. The judgment is related to the CMA’s decision to impose penalties on Pfizer and Flynn Pharma for hiking up the prices of … Continue reading The loser still pays – The Supreme Court’s judgment on costs in Phenytoin
Early spring brought us a couple of interesting competition law developments involving France. First, the Court of Appeal in Paris annulled a judgment by a lower court that dismissed a damages action against Sanofi in relation to its practice of “denigration” or “disparagement” of competitors. Next, the European Commission partly referred the McKesson/Phoenix merger to … Continue reading Sanofi and McKesson/Phoenix – Better late than never?
There was an interesting development at the intersection of Big Tech and medical devices in California this week, as Justice Jeffrey S. White largely denied Apple’s motion to dismiss a claim from AliveCor in the US District Court, Northern District of California, alleging that Apple unlawfully monopolised the U.S. market for watchOS heart rate analysis … Continue reading Apple v AliveCor – What it tells us about future MedTech antitrust battles
No-poach and wage-fixing agreements are somewhat of a new trend in antitrust enforcement. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) recently beat a challenge against its first criminal wage fixing case, involving wages for physical therapists. The DoJ has opened two further labour-related cases, also in healthcare. Meanwhile in the EU, the Commission has been vocal … Continue reading No-poach and wage-fixing agreements – Is antitrust game?
The National Security and Investment Act 2021 (NSI Act) comes into force on 4 January 2022. From then, the UK Government will be empowered to call in for review any qualifying acquisition which may give rise to UK national security concerns. The NSI Act captures acquisitions of any size, including in certain cases where minority … Continue reading New UK national security rules – What do they mean for life science investments?
In this post, we share the latest developments in the Illumina/GRAIL merger. This case involves the now completed acquisition by Illumina of GRAIL, a company that has developed a test, which has shown the ability to detect multiple cancers from a single blood draw. GRAIL was founded by Illumina but spun off in 2016. Illumina … Continue reading The Amici Curiosi – And other developments in Illumina/GRAIL
The Thicket 