Vivil, a German producer of cough drops and vitamin sweets, sued Südzucker, Europe’s largest sugar refiner, for compensation of damages caused by the German ‘sugar cartel’. The defendant participated, together with Nordzucker and Pfeifer, to anticompetitive agreements on sales areas, quotas and prices. The infringements involved the sale of sugar for the processing industry (so-called industrial…
In 2009, the CNMC sanctioned Repsol, Cepsa and BP for indirectly fixing the retail price charged to independent petrol stations that operated under their flag. In doing so, they restricted competition between the petrol stations of their network and all the other petrol stations. This decision aimed at avoiding price fixing of the fuel in…
The CMA is consulting on a modified draft order, which sets out how changes resulting from its investigation into private motor insurance will be introduced and monitored. In September last year, the CMA published its final report into private motor insurance which said that it would: ban agreements between price comparison websites and insurers which…
The CLaSF is inviting contributions to its forthcoming workshop on “Object and/or effects in Competition Law”, that will be held at the Lancaster Law School, on Friday 24 April 2015. Call for Papers The Competition Law Scholars Forum (CLaSF) Invite contributions to the XXIV CLaSF event (www.clasf.org) Clasf Workshop on “Object and/or effects in Competition Law” Lancaster…
On 12 December 2014, the General Court of the European Union rejected (partially in one case) the appeals brought by Hansen & Rosenthal, Tudapetrol, ChemPharm, ENI and Repsol against the Commission decision of 1 October 2008. The Commission fined, on that occasion, nine wax producers for price fixing and market sharing and imposed a total…
The Court of Justice has set aside the General Court’s ruling in the Guardian case, providing a different approach to the calculation of the fine. The fine for a competition law infringement is generally calculated as a percentage of the undertaking’s annual sales of the product concerned by the infringement. The relevant sales are usually…
The Competition and Markets Authority, following its provisional decision of 18 July 2014, has launched a market investigation into the personal current account and SME retail banking sectors. The investigation is aimed at finding out if low levels of customers shopping around and switching, limited transparency of the market, barriers to entry, stability of market…