The relationship between industrial policy and merger control is one of the most controversial topics in European competition law. The debate has become particularly intense in recent years given the perceived failure of free markets and the return of government intervention into the economy. In...

The objectives of this paper are to: (i) describe the fining policy of the European Commission for breach of EU competition rules; (ii) assess this policy in light of the criticisms that have been made by academics, practitioners and other stakeholders; and (iii) to the extent these criticisms...

The literature addressing the meaning of a commitment made by holders of patents ‘essential’ to a standard to licence such patents on ‘fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory’ (FRAND) terms and conditions is now substantial. While reaching quite different conclusions, a number of authors...

While the granting of rebates is a common commercial practice largely used by dominant and non-dominant firms, the assessment of rebates is one of the most complex and unsettled areas of competition law. In the EU, the decisional practice of the European Commission and the case-law of the...

In its submission to the recent OECD Roundtable on Bundled and Loyalty Discounts and Rebates (the "OECD Roundtable on rebates"), Korea observed that "loyalty discounts are getting growing attention both academically and practically" and that "this issue was now on top of the agendas of many...

Over the past few years, there has been an unprecedented degree of interest among competition authorities, scholars, Standard-Setting Organizations (hereafter, SSOs) and trade associations with respect to the level of royalties that are charged by holders of intellectual property rights (IPRs)....

One of the most intractable competition issues for the European Commission (the “Commission”) over the last ten years has been to define the circumstances in which the licensing conduct or litigation strategy of a standard-essential patent (often referred to as “SEP”) holders amount to...

This study concerns the way agreements between a dominant supplier and its customers that restrict the ability of those customers to buy from the dominant firm’s rivals, including exclusive dealing, conditional rebates and tying and bundling (hereafter, “vertical restraints”) have been...

Cloud gaming represents a new model of video game distribution. It involves playing games that are streamed from a remote server (the cloud), and has the potential to revolutionize gaming as it is, at least in theory, device-agnostic, allowing AAA games to be played on any device with a...

While Uber is able to operate legally in a growing number of countries and cities, regulatory approval has proved to be elusive in other jurisdictions. Yet, in a number of regions or cities Uber decided to launch its services despite the absence of regulatory approval. The fact that Uber has...