Antitrust

On 17 June 2025, The Court of Appeal of 's-Hertogenbosch rendered a judgment in antitrust follow-on damages litigation concerning the cathode-ray tube markets, ruling on – amongst other things – the commencement of the limitation.

On 20 June 2025, the Dutch Supreme Court referred questions to the CJEU in an antitrust damages case on trucks manufacturing. This blog explores the events leading to this pivotal moment and the key questions posed.

The judgment of the Court of Appeal of 's-Hertogenbosch of 27 May 2025 concerns a collective action brought by Consumentenbond and Stichting Aequitas against Koninklijke Philips N.V. under the old Dutch collective action regime of Article 3:305a DCC.

Companies should review their recruitment and hiring policies and practices. The Commission has joined the hunt for ‘job cartels’ with its first ever cartel in the labour market.

A potential major overhaul of EU merger control review began on 8 May 2025. Time for stakeholders to speak up about whether and particularly how the European Commission should incorporate wider strategic or societal objectives into its merger assessments.

M&A transactions falling below the merger notification thresholds are not necessarily exempt from scrutiny. Companies should therefore carefully assess the potential competitive impact of their transactions, as the ACM has proven to be vigilant.

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.

The ACM will, possibly as a prelude to an upcoming New Competition Tool, launch market investigations into five sectors. Companies are well-advised to prepare for upcoming market investigations and potential solutions for identified market failures.

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.

Unfair trading conditions and tying are gaining traction as alleged abusive practices in the digital industry, as the European Commission fines Meta EUR 797.72 million for hindering competitors of Facebook Marketplace.

Dominant pharma companies had better watch their words and use the patent system wisely. Pharma company Teva was fined EUR 462.6 million for disparagement and ‘divisional gaming’ to delay market entry and hinder the uptake of a competing drug.

The EU case cooperation mechanism does not create any rights for companies to have their case dealt with by a particular competition authority. Companies should therefore factor the dynamics of this cooperation mechanism into their defence strategies.