Tag: online platforms
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APP STORE CLAIMS: ANOTHER IMPORTANT LINK TO THE CJEU’S CHAIN IN PRIVATE ENFORCEMENT CASES
As private antitrust litigation against tech companies becomes increasingly common, courts are increasingly called upon to determine international and territorial jurisdiction for antitrust infringements that are committed in the EU without any physical location. The EU jurisdictional rule in Article 7(2) of the Brussels I-bis Regulation (Brussels I-bis) for tort cases uses the place where…
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The Amazon DSA Designation Appeal: the General Court Rejects Amazon’s Broad Fundamental-Rights Challenge
The last few months have seen a series of Digital Services Act (DSA) judgments by the General Court (GC) of the European Union, the first three of which were examined in an earlier blog post. The latest in this series of judgments, handed down on 19 November 2025, is Amazon EU v Commission (Case T-367/23),…
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The DOJ’s remedy proposal in Google Ad Tech – Correcting a broken market
On 17 April 2025, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that Google monopolised two digital advertising technology markets and unlawfully tied its publisher ad server (“DFP”) and its ad exchange (“AdX”). This marked a huge success for the U.S. federal government and 17 states who had…
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The end or the beginning of an era? The Court of Justice delivers its verdict in the Google Shopping case
The long-awaited judgment from the European Court of Justice (“CJEU”) in the Google Shopping saga has finally arrived. On 10 September 2024, following a case that started with an investigation in 2010 and spanned nearly one and a half decades, the CJEU rejected Google’s appeal and delivered a huge victory for the European Commission (“Commission”). …
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Interview with Joost Rietveld, UCL School of Management
Partners Damien Geradin and Stijn Huijts had the pleasure of sitting down with Joost Rietveld, an Associate Professor of Strategic Management at the UCL School of Management, University College London, to discuss his fascinating insights into platform competition and strategy. Joost has been a major contributor to the public debate in this area in the…
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Interview with Martijn Snoep, Head of the Dutch competition authority
Partners Ruben Elkerbout and Stijn Huijts had the pleasure of catching up with Martijn Snoep, the head of the Dutch Competition Authority (ACM) recently. Mr Snoep moved to the ACM from law firm De Brauw in 2018. He has been at the forefront of many internationally renowned initiatives at the ACM, including an investigation into…
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Back in the game: Court of Appeal sides with CMA against Apple in mobile browsers and cloud gaming market investigation
Yesterday, the CMA successfully overturned the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s (CAT) ruling that the CMA’s market investigation reference (MIR) into mobile browsers and cloud gaming was out of time and therefore unlawful. This opens the door to the CMA reopening the MIR which could lead to significant remedies being imposed against Apple. Background The CMA’s MIR…
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Platform divergence and geographic divergence after Microsoft/Activision and Apple v CMA
In January 2022, we first reported on the CMA’s concerns that Apple had been blocking cloud gaming apps on the App Store (Google does allow those apps on Play Store but does not allow in-app purchases to be completed within cloud gaming apps). The CMA referred this issue to a full market investigation on 22…
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Into Uncharted Waters – Making sense of the CAT’s Apple/CMA judgment
In November last year, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) started a market investigation into the supply of web browsers and browser engines on mobile devices, and the distribution of cloud gaming services through app stores on mobile devices. However, Apple appealed the CMA’s decision to make a market investigation reference (MIR) in the…
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Making sense of NCAs’ roles under the DMA – The Dutch proposal
In the run-up to the enactment of the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European Commission strongly defended its exclusive jurisdiction to enforce it. Despite valiant efforts on the part of several national competition authorities (NCAs) who wanted a formal role enforcing the new rules, the Commission’s exclusive competence remains largely in place in the…