First, Sir Tim Berners Lee writes a guest post on Vice President Ansip’s blog on the importance of network neutrality for Europe: When I designed the Web, I deliberately built it as a neutral, creative and collaborative space, building on the openness the Internet offered. My vision was that anyone, anywhere in the world could share knowledge and ideas without needing to buy a license or ask permission from myself or any CEO, government department or committee. This openness unleashed a tidal wave of innovation, and it is still powering new breakthroughs in science, commerce, culture and much more besides. Then today the US FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposes reclassifying local infrastructure under Title II of the 1996 Telecoms Act […]
From Competition Bulletin: Eurotunnel: when buying assets is a merger “When is an asset acquisition a merger? As the Eurotunnel litigation shows, the answer is not clear-cut. The background is the 2011 liquidation of the cross-channel ferry company SeaFrance. It could not be sold as a going concern, so instead there was an asset sale. Eurotunnel bought three ferries and various other assets including the […]” This is Commentary Elsewhere, from writers around the web. Please note the explanation of this section on the “About the Site” page.
Thomas Sharpe QC and James Flynn QC invited me to speak to the Lincoln’s Inn Eurogroup on the relationship between public and private antitrust enforcement. This is the third main section of the speech. The others are: The Damages Directive and the protection of leniency submissions and settlement statements; Publications and the content of decisions. For those who prefer to read paper documents, I attach PDFs of the full prepared remarks and the handout. In a selection of cases over the last couple of years the General Court and Court of Justice have grappled with what to do about cases where the Commission has found a particular company to have participated in part of a broader set of infringements, that broader set constituting a […]
Thomas Sharpe QC and James Flynn QC invited me to speak to the Lincoln’s Inn Eurogroup on the relationship between public and private antitrust enforcement. This is the second main section of the speech. The others are: The Damages Directive and the protection of leniency submissions and settlement statements; Single and continuous infringement. For those who prefer to read paper documents, I attach PDFs of the full prepared remarks and the handout. The Commission has a dual role in both proposing legislation to promote the effective application of competition law, as with the Damages Directive, and in directly enforcing the competition rules through its own decisions. And obviously there is an inevitable link between public enforcement and private enforcement because of follow on […]