Congress’ hearings with the leaders of tech giants such as Apple, Facebook, and Google have received a lot of coverage. One particular area of interest lies in Margrethe Vestager’s statement before Congress. The statement is made on behalf of Vestager in her capability as both Commissioner for Competition and Executive Vice-President of the Commission for…
The European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) has ruled that the EU-US Privacy Shield is unlawful and invalid. The Privacy Shield was an agreement between the EU and the US, which governed data transfers between the two territories. In a 2016 decision, the European Commission had found that the protection provided by the Privacy Shield was…
The UK government has warned that Huawei must be removed from Britain’s 5G phone networks by 2027, due to concerns over security risks. Huawei is reported to have close ties to the Chinese government and military establishment, which has raised national security concerns. The move comes after US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo’s speech last…
The how when and why of merger control as applied to deals in the digital space is hotly debated. There was insight from the French Competition Authority in a recent comment. Isabelle de Silva, the chief of the Autorité de la Concurrence, the French Competition Authority, has reportedly suggested in a television interview that the…
The UK government has introduced legislation to parliament which will provide further powers to intervene in transactions which may affect the UK’s ability to respond to any public health emergency. The powers mean that maintaining the UK’s ability to address public health emergencies has become the fourth public interest ground which would allow intervention in…
Germany’s Federal Court of Justice, the country’s highest civil court, has overruled a court decision suspending an antitrust authority order which focused on Facebook’s collection and use of data. The court found that there were “neither serious doubts about Facebook’s dominant position on the German market for social networks, nor that Facebook is abusing the…
In 2016, following a merger inquiry, the European Commission blocked a proposed merger between o2 and Three UK, largely due to the impact the merger would have in the UK mobile market, by reducing the number of Mobile Network Operators in the UK from four to three, leading to increased prices and worse quality of…
NHS Coronavirus App Isle of Wight trial, as reviewed by Preiskel & Co’s Stewart White. The UK Government urged amongst some fanfare for the residents of the Isle of Wight to be “part of history” by downloading the NHS Contact Tracing App, which is the solution chosen by the Government instead of the location based…
The UK Government has announced that the Coronavirus Future Fund will be launched in May 2020, providing government loans of between £125,000 to £5 million to innovative UK-based companies which face financing difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The loans are subject to matched funding being secured from private investors, and are expected to help…
In a further reminder of how interconnected the modern world is, streaming companies have announced that they will limit the quality of video streams to address high demand for bandwidth. The moves are to keep the internet functioning as smoothly as possible while telecoms services are under particularly high demand, as thousands of people adopt…
