Interim measures sought by European Commission for first time in 18 years

The European Commission has announced a formal investigation into Broadcom, a US chipmaker, regarding alleged abuse of a dominant position in the markets for modem and television chipsets. In doing so, the European Commission has indicated that it intends to impose interim measures to restrain any exclusionary practices the chipmaker may be engaging in. This…

Commission clears Hutchison takeover of Wind Tre

The European Commission has cleared CK Hutchison’s takeover of Italian telecoms group, Wind Tre, subject to CK Huthcison agreeing to take full responsibility for the conditions imposed on Wind Tre when it was created. These conditions relate to the completion of spectrum transfer and site divestment, and to the implementation of the national roaming agreement…

Practical competition policy implications of digital platforms

Diane Coyle has published a fascinating paper on potential reform to competition policy to address issues caused by digital platforms. The paper is available here an interesting read. Issues addressed in the paper include: Difficulties defining a multi-sided platform. Undue focus upon short-term pricing elements in competition assessments. The impact of dominance in the digital…

Preiskel and CEG Europe host a fascinating seminar on competition and regulatory policy

On Monday the Preiskel and CEG teams were delighted to host a seminar discussing various concerns and potential changes regarding competition and regulatory policy. The first panel focused on regulation and oligopoly in telecoms markets. Debate included whether oligopoly led ipso facto to bad consumer outcomes or whether there is scope for oligopoly to lead…

Hipster Antitrust: Advertisers question Google’s refunds for fraudulent traffic

It has been reported that Google has had to issue refunds to a number of advertisers, after the advertisements they placed with the company were run on website with invalid traffic. In the online advertising market, the advertiser pays more the more traffic the website its advertisement is placed on generates. The advertisements in question were…

ICOMP calls for publication of Google’s compliance proposals

ICOMP has called for the publication of Google’s remedy proposals to the European Commission, along with the Commission’s Decision in the Google Shopping investigation. The Commission announced its finding on 27 June 2017, outlining that it had found Google to have abused its dominance with regards to its Google Shopping product. As well as being…