The European Commission has fined Canon €28 million after finding that it had partially implemented an acquisition of Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation (“TMSC”) before merger control notification. The EU operates a compulsory notification system, meaning parties must notify the European Commission of plans to merge before the transaction is completed. In this scenario, TMSC had…
Google has announced a plan to allow rival search engines to compete to be a default search engine on new Android devices in Europe. Under the proposal, customers would have a choice of four default search engines, including Google, to choose from when setting up their phones. The proposal follows the European Commission fining Google…
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…
The battle of the tech titans continues as Google launches a new shopping service in the US which provides users with product suggestions based on their internet search history. Reported to be a move to tackle the rise of Amazon in product search and associated advertising revenues, it will be interesting to see whether the…
The European Commission has fined US chipmaker Qualcomm €242 million for abuse of market dominance in 3G baseband chipsets. The chipsets are a key component which enable smartphones and computer tablets to connect to the internet via 3G. The European Commission has found that company engaged in predatory pricing, “with the intention of eliminating a…
The European Commission has today announced the opening of a formal antitrust investigation against tech giant Amazon. The investigation is to assess whether Amazon’s use of sensitive data from independent retailers selling on its marketplace breaches EU Competition Law. With the European Commission having issued record-breaking fines in recent years against Google for illegal leveraging…
The European Commission finally announced its decision in the Google AdSense investigation on Wednesday 20 March 2019. The Commission found that Google’s Adsense for Search product had a market share of over 70% in the EEA market for online search advertising mediation platforms, thus having a dominant position in that market. The Commission found that…
The EU Commission has recently published the full decision in the Hutchison/Wind Tre merger. The Commission confirmed in its press release of 31 August 2018 that the merger was cleared with commitments. The full decision, now available on the EU Commission website, provides further insight into how the Commission reached its decision. The commitments related…
The EU Commission has recently published the full decision in the Apple/Shazam merger. An in-depth competition investigation was carried out by the EU Commission following a Phase II referral in April 2018. The Commission confirmed in its press release of 6 September 2018 that the transaction had been cleared and they had found that it…
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…
