Ireland's Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has been considering for some time as to whether to introduce a simplified merger notification procedure.
EU, Competition & ProcurementThree days before the UK was due to leave the EU on 31 October 2019, the European Council agreed to give the UK a further extension on its notice period to leave the EU.
BrexitIn a shrewd move by the EU, Michel Barnier (the European Commission's Chief Brexit Negotiator) has been appointed to lead the new European Commission "taskforce". He will handle, among other issues, the second phase of the talks between the EU and the UK.
BrexitOn 19 October 2019, after a day in the House of Commons which the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson must have found frustrating (because the Meaningful Vote on his Revised Withdrawal Agreement did not take place), the Prime Minister sent an unsigned letter to the President of the European Council.
BrexitLet us assume that the negotiators in the “tunnel” agree a deal, then what happens next?
BrexitCustoms unions might be described as a form of free trade agreements (FTA) in which parties to such an agreement agree to provide each other with certain trade benefits such as no tariffs on trade in goods within such a union.
EU, Competition & ProcurementOn 27 September 2019, the European Commission (Commission) announced that it had fined two companies a total of €31.6m for breaching EU antitrust rules. A third company involved was not fined as it had disclosed the existence of the breach to the Commission.
EU, Competition & ProcurementOn 10 September 2019, the new European Commission President-Designate, Ursula von der Leyen, was widely expected to nominate the new - and 13th - European Commissioner for Competition Policy.
BrexitAs we communicated in our article last month, the new EU Prospectus Regulation (the Regulation) has applied in full across the EU since 21 July 2019. At a domestic level, the European Union (Prospectus) Regulations 2019 (S.I. No. 380/2019) came into force on 21 July 2019 (the 2019 Regulations).
Corporate & M&AOn 13 May 2019, the European Commission fined Anheuser-Busch InBev NV/SA (AB InBev) €200,409,000 for abusing the company’s dominance in the Belgian beer sector because the company relabelled one of its beer brands and also restricted supply of that brand so as to deter the cross-border sales of the brand within the EU
EU, Competition & ProcurementThere is a great deal of commentary that a No-Deal Brexit (NDB) on 31 October 2019 is inevitable. While one cannot rule out the possibility, it is far from inevitable and definitely not a racing certainty.
BrexitIreland's Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys, TD, has requested the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) to study the public liability insurance sector in Ireland.
EU, Competition & Procurement