Your Weekly Digest | Issue 214

The ACCC has announced that it will not accept a long-term behavioural undertaking offered by Google that sought to address competition concerns about its proposed acquisition of wearables supplier and manufacturer Fitbit. The ACCC will therefore continue its investigation into Google’s proposed acquisition of Fitbit and has set a new decision date of 25 March 2021. Read more.

The CMA is investigating Google’s proposals to remove third party cookies and other functionalities from its Chrome browser. Read more.

Argos USA LLC, a producer and seller of ready-mix concrete headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, was charged with participating in a conspiracy to fix prices, rig bids, and allocate markets for sales of ready-mix concrete in the Southern District of Georgia and elsewhere, the Department of Justice announced today.  Read more.

The ‘transition period’ following the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union ended at 11pm on 31 December 2020. This brought with it the most significant change to UK merger control in close to 20 years.  While the largest cross-border transactions previously came under the exclusive remit of the European Commission to investigate, these transactions can now also fall to the CMA to review. Read more.

The December 24 announcement that the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) had reached an agreement in principle on a new Trade and Cooperation Agreement (the TCA) was greeted with sighs of relief on both sides of the Channel.  For competition lawyers and parties engaged in M&A activities, however, the work of clarifying... Read more.

This paper introduces the Special Issue of the Review of Industrial Organization that studies the impact of the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines after 10 years On August 19, 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued newly updated Horizontal Merger Guidelines (2010 Guidelines). Read more.

Steven C. Salop & Fiona Scott Morton
In this article, which is part of the Symposium on the Tenth Anniversary of the 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, we suggest a number of improvements that should be considered in the next revision of the Guidelines. Read more.

Alison Oldale, Joel Schrag & Christopher Taylor
In this paper, we discuss some of the more significant differences between the 2010 Guidelines and the preceding version, and we identify specific cases that illustrate the continued relevance of practices and techniques that are highlighted in the revised Guidelines. Read more.

Pablo Ibáñez Colomo
November 2010 marks the tenth anniversary of the opening of an investigation against Google’s practices in relation to search. It is remarkable to realise how much the EU competition law landscape has changed since then. Read more.

Amelia Fletcher
There is a growing international consensus that standard competition law, while valuable, is inadequate for addressing the panoply of competition problems arising in digital platform markets. Read more.