On 11 November 2020, the UK government published a draft National Security and Investment Bill (the “Bill”). The Bill includes long-expected changes to the regime for reviewing foreign direct investment into the UK, and follows earlier reforms to the UK merger regime aimed at protecting Critical National Infrastructure. If passed by Parliament, the Bill will…
A mere two weeks from the record-breaking British Airways information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) £20million fine, Marriott has been handed the second highest General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) penalty at £18million. A striking similarity between the two fines is the steep discount from the original figure (£99.2million) from the ICO’s intention to fine notice dated from…
A drastic and “pro-tech” government policy paper to overhaul the UK’s data protection legislation is believed by the European Commission to be jeopardising future collaboration with the European Union. The government’s new “National Data Strategy”, which vows a profound “transformation” of how data is used across the public sector, is expected to adversely affect the…
In a significant reduction, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (the “ICO”), has announced that they have issued a notice of its penalty decision to fine British Airways (“BA”) £20 million.This is different figure from the ICO’s previous notice of intention from July 2019, where BA faced a potential fine of £183.39 million. The ICO previously…
The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) recently issued its revised “Statement on coronavirus (COVID-19), consumer contracts, cancellation and refunds“, which was first made available on 30 April 2020. The updated statement now focuses on consumers’ rights where lockdown rules do not prevent a trader from rendering a service but change how it can be rendered.…
TuneIn is a radio service which provides links to radio stations all over the world. In 2017, the service was sued in the English High Court by Sony Music UK and Warner Music UK, on the basis that linking to radio stations in other jurisdictions, which were not licensed to play music in the region,…
In 2019, the German competition authority, the Bundeskartellamt, found that Facebook had broken competition law by abusing its dominant position in relation to the terms and conditions imposed on consumers and data privacy. Facebook asserted compliance with the GDPR as a defence, but this did not stand scrutiny. The Bundeskartellamt ordered Facebook to comply with…
The Digital Policy Alliance (“DPA”) has published its response to the CMA’s Call for Inputs on proposals for a Digital Markets Unit, issued alongside the CMA’s Final Report on its market study into Online Platforms and Digital Advertising. The DPA response can be read here. Tim Cowen, Chair, Antitrust Practice, is co-chair of the DPA’s…
In a recently issued judgment, the EU Court of Justice (“EUCJ”) has confirmed the obligation imposed on traders selling goods or services online to consumers under the ADR Directive (2013/11/EU) (the “ADR Directive”) that requires sellers (which can include Communications Providers) to set out in their website terms and conditions, details of the approved Alternative…
After 15 months of investigation following the imposition of an Initial Enforcement Order in June 2019, Amazon’s acquisition of 16% of the RooFoods business, better known by its trading name Deliveroo, has been cleared by the CMA. Amazon announced that it would be leading a $575 million Series G investment in the food delivery business…
