Kroniek van het mededingingsrecht

Short Reads - De voorzieningenrechter van de Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State gaat in een recente uitspraak op voorhand uit van de ontvankelijkheid van een beroep van een persoon die een zienswijze heeft ingediend over een ontwerp-inpassingsplan. Dit terwijl de betreffende persoon geen feitelijke gevolgen van het plan ondervindt en dus geen belanghebbende is.

Short Reads - In hybrid cartel proceedings (in which one party opts out of settlement), settlement decisions should not pre-judge the outcome of the Commission's investigation into non-settling parties. When the Commission publishes the settlement decision before the decision imposing a fine on the non-settling party, it must be careful in its drafting, the European Court of Justice confirmed. Furthermore, differences in the fining methodology applied to (similarly placed) settling and non-settling parties will have to be objectively justified and sufficiently reasoned.

Short Reads - Only dominant companies with a “genuinely tight grip” on the market can be forced to grant rivals access to their infrastructure. According to the ECJ’s rulings in Slovak Telekom and Deutsche Telekom, it is only in this scenario that the question of indispensability of the access for rivals comes into play. In the assessment of practices other than access refusal, indispensability may be indicative of a potential abuse of a dominant position, but is not a required condition.

Short Reads - On 9 December 2020, the Amsterdam District Court (the “Court”) declared a foundation inadmissible in a collective action regarding alleged manipulation of LIBOR, EURIBOR and other interest rate benchmarks. The foundation sought declaratory judgments that Rabobank, UBS, Lloyds Bank and ICAP (the “defendants”) had engaged in wrongful conduct and unjust enrichment vis-à-vis the class members.