Insights

Washington – December 22, 2022: Global Competition Review recognized Crowell & Moring’s Antitrust & Competition Group in its “GCR 100 2023” – the leading ranking of the world’s competition policy law and economics practices. This year marks the 23rd edition of the awards and the 16th consecutive year that the Antitrust & Competition Group has been recognized.

Washington – January 3, 2022: Crowell & Moring elected 13 lawyers to the firm’s partnership, effective January 1, 2022. The firm also promoted seven to the position of senior counsel and 19 associates to the position of counsel. The new partners have been promoted from within the ranks of the firm’s London, New York, and Washington, D.C. offices and from across several practice groups, including Advertising & Media; Antitrust & Competition; Corporate; Energy; Environment & Natural Resources; Government Contracts; Health Care; Technology & Intellectual Property; International Dispute Resolution; Litigation; Mass Tort, Product, and Consumer Litigation; and Privacy & Cybersecurity.

Brussels – April 27, 2020: The Legal 500 Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) 2020 edition has recognized 11 practice areas and 13 lawyers in Crowell & Moring’s Brussels office. The firm is recognized as “top tier” in three categories. Thomas De Meeseand Kristof Roox, co-managing partners of the Brussels office, are listed in the Legal 500 Hall of Fame for “continued excellence in client service.”

On August 1, 2024, the European Commission published its draft Guidelines on abusive exclusionary conduct by dominant undertakings. Their adoption would mark the first major update in over 15 years of the Commission’s guidance on the application of the prohibition of abuse of dominance laid down in Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The Commission’s 2008 Guidance on enforcement priorities in applying Article 82 of the EC Treaty to abusive exclusionary conduct by dominant undertakings, which received only a limited update in 2023, were once hailed as a welcome move away from a legalistic, form-based approach to an effects-based approached informed by economics. Is the pendulum now swinging back to a more formalistic approach based on presumptions, shifting the burden of proof onto dominant undertakings and heralding an era of stricter enforcement?

At the beginning of the year, we brought to your attention that a number of important Belgian and EU legislative changes are likely to have an impact in 2024: there are new laws that have been adopted and proposals that are expected to firm up into law.

More than 25 years after the adoption of the original Market Definition Notice in 1997, the European Commission published a revised Market Definition Notice earlier this year. The definition of relevant markets is often the first step in a competition analysis and forms the basis for calculating undertakings’ market shares and thus their level of market power.

The European Commission is currently reviewing the Horizontal Block Exemption Regulations and the Horizontal Cooperation Guidelines. The revised regulations and guidelines will enter into force by the end of this year. The drafts reflect the Commission’s updated approach to horizontal cooperation issues such as joint purchasing, joint production, bidding consortia, information exchanges, etc. They also provide new guidance on agreements pursuing sustainability (ESG) goals. This webinar will focus on the key changes that inhouse counsel should be aware of.

How can you collect and use big data without running into trouble? The collection and commercial use of data is no longer merely a GDPR issue. It also raises questions in terms of competition law rules.

On June 1, 2022, the various governments of Belgium reached a cooperation agreement on a screening regime for foreign direct investments (FDI). The new regime aims to protect Belgium’s national security, public order, and strategic interests. To that end, transactions in a wide range of sectors, and regardless of their size, will be subject to mandatory and suspensory notification to a new body, the Interfederal Screening Commission (ISC). The new regime is currently expected to enter into force by mid-2023.