Meanwhile, in Europe…
Here is a guest post by Pascal Berghe on current developments in Europe. Pascal showed up for our rowdy bloggers meetup. Thanks, Pascal!
While most of us were in Washington DC for the ABA Spring Meeting, some interesting developments occurred last week on the other side of the Atlantic:
- The Commission imposed its largest fine ever on an individual undertaking for participation in a cartel limited to one Member State (the fine also enters the top ten largest fines by company or by cartel). Heineken was fined €273,283,000.00 ($341,603,750.00) in the Dutch Beer case. The Commission granted a €100,000 reduction due to the extremely lengthy investigation, which lasted seven years. Three similar beers cartels had been previously unearthed in Belgium, France and Luxembourg… Who said that competition law does not tackle problems that affect citizens?
- The UK Office of Fair Trading released a discussion paper on private enforcement. The paper focuses on enabling collective and representative actions. It seeks to alleviate the plaintiff’s burden of proof and also encourages out-of-court settlements. The paper is a follow-up of the Commission’s 2005 Green Paper, while waiting for a White Paper (more concrete proposals). Any comments should be submitted by 13 June 2007…
- The French Competition Council issued a document revising its 2001 leniency programme to align it with the ECN Model Leniency Programme. The amendments include the creation of a marker system and the clarification of the substantive and procedural requirements.
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April 23rd, 2007 at 8:20 pm
It was a pleasure… and you chose a very nice bar!