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The European Commission will review a transaction thanks to Italy’s call-in powers. Even though the broad interpretation of Article 22 EUMR is off the table, deals that do not meet standard EU and national merger thresholds may still need to be notified.

The European Commission adopted a Delegated Regulation (EU/2025/1184) amending its list of high-risk third countries under the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Directive.

The ECJ upheld the Commission’s fine on Scania for participating in a cartel. The Commission’s impartiality is not necessarily impaired by having the Commission case team in charge of the settlement procedure also deal with the penalty decision.

Are ‘European champion’ companies walled off from unfair (foreign) competition the future? The European Commission recently presented its Competitiveness Compass to navigate the European Union to strengthened competitiveness.

The General Court has annulled the EUR 1.49 billion fine imposed on Google. The Commission had failed to properly assess the allegedly abusive contractual clauses related to online advertising, including whether they actually had a lock-in effect.

On 13 February 2025, the District Court of Rotterdam upheld the ACM’s approach in its ruling on the appeal against the regulator’s first-ever excessive pricing fine.

Now that the European Commission adopted the revised Horizontal Guidelines (HGs), including the new chapter on sustainability agreements, companies wishing to set up sustainability initiatives finally have more certainty on the applicable guidance.

The Ecodesign Regulation entered into force on 18 July 2024. It forms the basis of the EU’s approach to sustainable and circular product design.

On 17 September 2024, former president of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi published his report to the European Commission with observations on Europe’s sustainable competitiveness and recommendations for Europe’s future.

Unilever shows the need to assess evidence on lack of anti-competitive effects in abuse cases and how liability can extend across different levels of the supply chain. Dominant undertakings had better think twice when imposing policy on distributors.

The ACM’s push for companies to come forward for an antitrust blessing of their sustainability solutions is paying off. The ACM has again given informal guidance to companies wishing to make sustainability agreements.

In the first hybrid cartel proceedings by the Belgian Competition Authority, the Prosecutor recently submitted a draft decision to condemn and impose a fine on pharmaceutical wholesaler CERP SA for allegedly participating in anticompetitive practices.

Tom Barkhuysen and Valérie van 't Lam wrote a preliminary opinion for the Koninklijke Vereeniging 'Handelsrecht' on how to enforce the CSDDD's open standards.

The Commission’s guidelines on collective agreements clarify the manoeuvre room solo self-employed persons have under the competition rules to collectively boost their working conditions. A Directive on platform work working conditions is on the way.

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Nora Offergelt and Pieter Schütte have written a Practice Note with Practical Law Capital Markets in which they discuss the top tips for doing capital markets deals in the Netherlands.

There is a lot coming at companies with regard to sustainability matters these days. This could also affect company directors’ responsibilities and liability. In this article, we will discuss some points of attention and share our practical observations.

In this blog, Marieke Driessen and Niek Groenendijk of our Financial Markets team discuss the EU green bonds regulation which will start applying in 2024.