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“Whistleblowing” describes the uncovering of abuses, such as corruption, money laundering, and environmental hazards, by whistleblowers who have acquired insider knowledge due to their professional activity. Whistleblowers must usually accept serious personal or professional disadvantages as a result of their reports.
To protect whistleblowers, the EU already issued the Whistleblowing Directive in 2019. This directive stipulates that enterprises have the obligation to establish channels and procedures to enable reports of abuses and breaches of the law.
On 12 January 2023 the Regulation (EU) 2022/2560 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 December 2022 on foreign subsidies distorting the internal market (hereinafter: the “FSR Regulation”) has entered into force.
The FSR Regulation, which will apply from 12 July 2023, equips the European Commission (hereinafter: the “Commission”) with new tools preventing distortion in competition of the internal (EU) market resulting from “foreign subsidies” meaning subsidies granted by the non-EU states to the entities operating on the internal market.
With a judgment from 2019, the ECJ had clearly set the direction: From the Working Hours Directive in conjunction with Art. 31 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFR), there is the obligation of the Member States to ensure that employers introduce an “objective, reliable and accessible system that can be used to measure the daily working hours worked by employees”; this follows from the right of employees to effective health protection and compliance with the legally prescribed (weekly and daily) maximum working hours. However, the ECJ had not set a specific deadline for the Member States.
Over three full years, the requirements of the ECJ then remained without any significant practical consequences, with a few exceptions that we will present below on a country-specific basis. And it was probably generally assumed that legislative intervention would be required for the practical implementation of the judgment. However, the German Federal Labour Court has now taken the ball directly and formulated directly from existing law specific obligations incumbent on the employer even without legislative measures.
The applicable e-commerce policy is over 20 years old. That is why the European Union launched a regulatory package for online platforms a few years ago.
Working from home, New Work, flexibility, self-organisation, trust-based working hours. These (and other) terms describe what is no longer a vision of the future or a mere phenomenon. Day-to-day working life has fundamentally changed in the last two and a half years at the latest since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which acted as a catalyst in this respect.
The development and commercialisation of drones is making relentless progress. Due to the wide range of applications and the rapid technical advances, unmanned aircraft – or “UAS” (=Unmanned Aircraft System) for short – are predicted to be a promising future.
In case of a hacking attack, unauthorised attackers attempt to access external PCs, notebooks, smartphones, tablets or even entire corporate networks. Since the frequency of such attacks has increased massively in Europe over the past year, in this article we look at the successful hacker attack from the outside, which encrypts the affected systems in such a way that the company can no longer access its system at all.
The European Commission’s Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (“VBER”), which was previously potentially applicable to distribution, whereby agreements between manufacturers or suppliers and retailers are exempt from the ban on cartels, ceased to be in force on 31/05/2022, because the original period of validity of 12 years was reached.
These new versions bring some changes which relax requirements compared to the previous legal situation, but also tighten requirements, which primarily take into account the area of tension between online/offline sales.
Cryptocurrency, big data, artificial intelligence, data theft, cloud, virtual, augmented, or mixed reality, cyber warfare, telemedicine, social media, autonomous driving, Industry 4.0, Criminal Law 4.0, NFTs – these are not the only issues that are bringing about the era of the fourth so-called digital revolution. Each of these digital changes is bringing new challenges to all facets of society – the link between law and technology is one of the biggest. An example that illustrates the special relationship between legal and digital technologies very well are NFTs (non-fungible tokens).
The "current turning point" in connection with the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine has not only a political but also perhaps an even greater economic dimension. The sharp rise in the price of raw materials and energy has led to a dramatic increase in costs for companies. The interruption of supply chains often causes production downtimes in industry. Despite all the harmonisation of laws that has taken place in the last 20 to 30 years, especially in the European legal sphere, this issue has remained untouched by efforts at legal standardisation. The reason for this was apparently a lack of topicality. Therefore, with this article, we provide an overview of how this topic is handled legally with regard to three key questions in the respective countries of our partner law firms.
Already in 2020, the European Commission presented the draft for a new EU regulation on a single market for digital services, through which the latest developments in the field of digital services are to be incorporated and regulated at EU level. The proposal aims at better protection of consumer rights in the digital environment and at the joint internal market-related enforcement potential of the EU Member States.
On November 10, 2021, the General Courtupheld the fine of EUR 2.42 billion that was imposed by the European Commission (EC) on Google in 2017.
At the time, the EC found that Google had abused its dominant position in the market for general online search services in 13 countries of the European Economic Area, by favouring its own price comparison service, specifically a dedicated search service, over competing price comparison services.
The notification and query obligations in relation to the competition register will enter into force on 1 December 2021. This means that electronic data transmission to the competition register may start. The nationwide competition register provides public contracting authorities, sector contracting authorities and concession grantors with information on whether a company is to be excluded or can be excluded from a public procurement procedure due to economic offences committed.
On March 26th 2021, the European Commission ("Commission") published guidance on the application of the referral system set under Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation ("EUMR").
Private equity firms could face significant fines for violations of EU-Antitrust laws committed by their portfolio-companies. At the end of January, the European Court of Justice upheld a fine of more than €37 million against The Goldman Sachs Group Inc (“Goldman Sachs”) for the involvement of its indirect investment company, Prysmian SpA (“Prysmian“), in a global undersea-cable cartel (C-595/18 P, The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. v European Commission).
On Dec. 15, 2020, the European Commission proposed new rules in form of two laws: (i) the "Digital Services Act" and (ii) the "Digital Markets Act". Main reason for these proposals is the impact of digitalization on fundamental rights and on competition.
State and corporate compliance obligations to combat money laundering and terrorist financing remain an utmost priority for EU member states. Companies (“legal entities”) have therefore been obliged to disclose their “beneficial owners”, among other things, for quite some time. In Austria, a separate database - the “Beneficial Owners Register” - was set up for this purpose. In course of the implementation of the 5th EU Money Laundering Directive, further tightening measures have now been adopted.
The new “Law on Trade Secrets” now implements the so-called “EU Trade Secrets Directive”. This adopts the European legal requirements for the protection of confidential know-how and secret business information. Moreover, the new legal provisions contain limitation periods and important procedural provisions for the protection of trade secrets in court proceedings.
According to Sec. 1118 ABGB (Austrian Civil Code), the lessor can terminate a lease unilaterally prematurely if the lessee makes a “considerably detrimental use” of the leased object. The scope and content of these legal provisions is a constant source of discussion. The mere performance of structural alterations by the lessee without the consent of the lessor does not in itself justify a good cause for the termination of the lease.
The new “Law on Trade Secrets” now implements the so-called “EU Trade Secrets Directive”. This adopts the European legal requirements for the protection of confidential know-how and secret business information. Moreover, the new legal provisions contain limitation periods and important procedural provisions for the protection of trade secrets in court proceedings.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) recently ruled on the long-discussed question of whether and how website operators can integrate the Facebook Like button (so-called “social plug-in”) in accordance with data protection requirements.Th ECJ’s investigation results from a legal dispute between the Consumer Association of North Rhine-Westphalia and a subsidiary of Peek & Cloppenburg KG.
A new law on company crises has significantly changed the rules applicable to limited liability companies in this respect Among other things, the liability of the company’s management was tightened. Furthermore, the tasks of the supervisory body were expanded. The reform’s true impact remains to be seen: Will there be a change in corporate culture or will there be an increase in corporate crises?
“Whistleblower” - people who point out violations of the law - will be protected even more in the future. This is the aim of a new law that came into force a few months ago. The new regulation adds to already existing provisions on the protection of whistleblowers in the employment relationship.
State aid is granted on the basis of various criteria. The region or the economic sector in which the investment is made is decisive, but also the strategic importance of the investment and the level of the investment volume. Investments in structurally weak regions receive higher subsidies than investments in industrial areas. For the award of grants, a distinction is made between six different regions.
At the end of 2017, in the legal case C-42/17, the ECJ issued a much publicised decision on the question of the primacy of application of Community Law.
If a Gmbh makes payments after it becomes insolvent, the Managing Directors are personal-ly liable vis-à-vis the company, regardless of the internal allocation of responsibilities.
In view of the rapid growth of online trade, the Chinese government adopted the first e-commerce law on the comprehensive regulation of online business on 31/08/2018, which will enter into force on 01/01/2019.
Since May 2014, ownership rights for land and soil can only be acquired by natural and legal persons who have resided or been established in Bulgaria for longer than five years.
The presidential decree no. 32 issued on 12/09/2018 to protect the value of the Turkish cur-rency ("Decree") sets the limitation of foreign currency and foreign currency indexed contracts and stipulates that these contracts must be converted within 30 days into Turkish Lira (“TL”).
In the Czech Republic, as of 01/07/2019, employees should already be entitled to sick leave from the first day of their inability to work.
The residual debt discharge (RDD) was introduced in 2015 as an exception from the princip-le of general asset liability of the debtor in the insolvency code.
Due to the low unemployment rate in Slovakia, employers have recently been confronted with a lack of available workers.
In Romania, law no. 190/2018, and thus the national implementation of the GDPR, took effect as of 31/07/2018. In comparison with other EU countries, law no. 190/2018 was rather short.
In the business world, situations often arise in which the only existing managing director wants to leave the company.
In the budget planning for 2019, companies should prepare for the expected increase in Po-lish labour costs.
With the large-scale reform of the company law from the year 2003, Italian legislators had simplified the regulations on the Governance of limited liability companies.
When a new shareholder list must be submitted in the commercial register due to a change, it must satisfy the requirements of § 40 I GmbHG [Limited Liability Companies Act] in the version of 23/06/2017 according to the decision of the BGH [Federal Supreme Court] dated 26/06/2018 – II ZB 12/16.
The EU Directive on the regulation of confidential know-how and business information (know-how directive) was implemented in Hungary in July 2018.
Nestlé is a holder of a 3D EU trademark that corresponds to the "KitKat" bar marketed by it and protects its design.
Throughout Europe, approximately 80% of smartphones are equipped with the Google oper-ating system, Android...
The electronic transmission of tenders in the award procedure is nothing new and was already standardised in the Federal Procurement Act 2006 both for the classical area and for the area of sector contractors.
Online platforms and search engines dominate Internet trading. Unilateral business conditions, non-transparent algorithms and rankings are unfortunately not uncommon.
As in the past, in the case of company sales, the seller has repeatedly neither paid salaries due nor paid social security contributions due for employees, the Bulgarian Commercial Code was amended accordingly by three successive amendments in December 2017, February and March 2018.
International business transactions often involve cross border transfer of personal data. This is the case for instance where the data is stored on a server located in a third country (a country outside the EEA) or a third country IT service provider has access to the data processed by a company within the EU. If personal data is to be transferred to a third country specific provisions of the GDPR will apply.
As of 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) introduces harsh sanctions for data breaches with extended scope of applicability.Companies and other data processing entities become potential subjects not only to the data subjects’ claims for damages, the enforceability of which has been enhanced, but also to increased administrative fines to be imposed by supervisory authorities.
The General Regulation on Data Protection (GDPR) which will apply from 25th May 2018, introduces the position of the Data Protection Officer (DPO).The DPO shall be the contact person for and shall be involved in all data protection related issues of the given entity. The DPO is an organ within the company which liaises with the authority, the company and the data subjects.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) adopted by the EU Parliament in 2016 provides a higher standard of protection of personal data for EU citizens. The GDPR will have direct effect in all member states as of May 25, 2018 and it will affect businesses all around the world that are engaged in activities with individuals in the EU.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the EU will come into force on 25 May 2018 and it will affect organisations worldwide working with or within the EU. The GDPR promotes accountability and governance. Organisations are required to put into place comprehensive governance measures to ensure compliance. Non-compliance can lead to heavy fines up to EUR 20 million or 4 % of the global annual turnover, whichever is higher.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) adopted by the EU Parliament in 2016 provides a higher standard of protection of personal data for EU citizens. The GDPR will have direct effect in all member states as of May 25, 2018 and it will affect businesses all around the world that are engaged in activities with individuals in the EU.
On June 7, 2012 the Lithuanian Competition Council fined over 30 tour operators and travel agents for an anti-competitive concerted practice in the package tours sales market throughout Lithuania for an amount of EUR 1.5 Mio.
According to European Law a proprietor of a patent is usually allowed to bring an action for infringement seeking a prohibitory injunction or the recall of products as well as actions seeking the rendering of accounts and award of damages. Such are considered part of the rights of the proprietor. However, an abuse of a dominant position through exercising these rights is possible.
The European Court of Justice (“ECJ“) confirmed on 09.07.2015 in its case C-231/14P InnoLux Corp vs. Commission that the turnover of vertically-integrated companies outside of the European economic area (“EEA”) may be taken into account by the European Commission (“Commission”) for the calculation of the fine to be imposed on cartel participants.
The jurisdiction of a court for damage claims by victims of a competition law infringement is basically determined by Regulation (EC) NO. 44/2001 of 22.12.2000 ("Brussels I Regulation"). Accordingly, the jurisdiction of the court results from the domicile of the defendant. In cases that include several defendants with different domiciles, the plaintiff may choose a court within the different domiciles.
The European Commission (“Commission”) can usually close cartel cases through either infringement or settlement decisions. The latter are generally shorter and less detailed, but can only be applied if a company cooperates with the Commission and is willing to acknowledge its participation and role in the relevant competition law infringement.
The German Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) imposed a fine of EUR 300,000 on 12.05.2015 against United Navigation GmbH (“United”) for enforcing resale price maintenance on its retailers from July 2009 until May 2014.
The European Commission (“Commission”) sent a Statement of Objections to OAO Gazprom (“Gazprom”) on 22.04.2015 for the alleged abuse of its dominant position on the Central and Eastern European gas markets. Thus, Gazprom allegedly committed an infringement against Article 102 TFEU.
The European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) reconfirmed the application of the principle of economic continuity in the joined cases C-93/13 P, European Commission vs Versalis SpA and Eni SpA and C-123/13 P, Versalis SpA and Eni SpA vs European Commission. Moreover, it mainly clarified the criteria for establishing the liability of repeat offenders as such.
Am 09.03.2015 bestätigte das Gericht in der Rechtssache T – 175/12 Deutsche Börse AG gegen Kommission den Beschluss der Europäischen Kommission („Kommission“) COMP/.6166 Deutsche Börse / NYSE Euronext vom 01.02.2012, welches einen Zusammenschluss von Deutsche Börse AG („Deutsche Börse“) und NYSE Euronext („NYSE“) verboten hat.
The European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) elaborated on the principle of economic continuity on 18.12.2014 in its case C-434/13 P, European Commission vs Parker Hannifin Manufacturing Srl and Parker-Hannifin Corporation (together “Parker”).
In its decision of 23 October 2014 in Case C-302/13, a dispute between Lithuanian Airlines and the airport operator in Riga, the ECJ dealt with legal issues in relation to a damage claim resulting from a competition law infringement.
„Groupement des cartes bancaires“ („Grouping“) is a French economic interest grouping of the main banking institutions which created the interoperability of payments and withdrawals made with bank cards issued by the members of the Grouping (“CB-cards”). At the end of June 2007 the Grouping already had 148 members.
The Grouping introduced in 2002 three pricing measures which included: (1) a mechanism for regulating the acquiring function (“MERFA”), whereby members who issue more CB-Cards than affiliate new trade members to the payment system have to pay certain fees; (2) a reform of the membership fee for new members as well as an additional fee for members, whose CB-Cards in stock exceed a certain threshold; and (3) a fee for issuing CB-Cards to be paid by inactive members.
On 19 December 2007 The European Commission (“Commission”) published a decision regarding multilateral interchange fees (“MIF”) within the card payment system MasterCard for private clients. Only MasterCard’s MIF for cross-border transactions within the European Economic Area (“EEA”) and within Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxemburg, Malta, Greece and the Czech Republic were subject to this decision, in which the fees were considered as anti-competitive and therefore prohibited. However, no fine was imposed on MasterCard for the application of the MIF.
The European Court of Justice („ECJ“) decided on 4 September 2014 that the Italian regulation regarding the price of haulage services infringes European law.
On 19 September 2007 the European Commission (“Commission”) imposed a fine of more than EUR 300 Mio on seven companies for the involvement in anticompetitive agreements concerning zip and other fasteners.
On 23 July 2014 the European Commission („Commission“) imposed a fine of EUR 20 Mio. on the salmon farmer and processor Marine Harvest ASA (“Marine Harvest”) for a breach of the standstill obligation.
In 2008 the European Commission (“Commission”) issued a decision to the Greek government ordering the implementation of measures to put an end on anticompetitive effects resulting from the dominant position of the public electricity undertaking and sole owner of all power stations operating on lignite Dimosia Epicheirisi Ilektrismou AE (“DEI”).
On 09 June 2014 the European Commission (“Commission”) imposed fines totaling an amount of EUR 427.7 Mio. on six pharmaceutical companies for being involved in anticompetitive agreements aiming the delayed market entry of generic medicine.
The European Commission („Commission“) adopted a revised version of the de minimis Notice (“Notice”) on 25 June 2014. The Notice evaluates when agreements, that are usually prohibited, do not fall under the scope of the general prohibition of anticompetitive practices due to its minor impact on competition. The principle purposes of this Notice are (i) to simplify the evaluation of restrictive conducts of small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) in order to act within the legal boundaries and (ii) to enable the Commission to focus on those cases that involve a higher risk of distorting competition in the Single Market.
As part of the investigation of the high-voltage cable cartel, the Court ordered in Case T-135/09, Nexans France and Nexans v. European Commission that Nexans SA (“Nexans”), including explicitly its subsidiary Nexans France SAS (“Nexans France”), had to tolerate inspections of the European Commission (“Commission”). According to Nexans the decision of the Commission lacked a precise description of the product- and geographical market. Moreover it stated that the Commission did not provide sufficient evidence to justify an inspection.
On 30 November 2005 the European Commission (“Commission”) imposed fines for an amount of EUR 291 Mio. on sixteen companies involved in the industrial bags cartel. Trioplast Wittenheim SA (“Trioplast Wittenheim”) and its parents companies were fined and prosecuted for their involvement in anticompetitive agreements regarding industrial bags in Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands between 1990 and 1999. The agreements aimed at price fixing, pricing methods, allocation of markets, quotes and customers, bid-rigging and the exchange of information.
In 2007 the European Commission (“Commission”) imposed fines of EUR 992 Mio. on several companies for their involvement in the escalators cartel which concerned the installation and maintenance of elevators and escalators in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In addition, the Austrian cartel court imposed fines of EUR 75.4 for the same companies involved in the cartel regarding the same product but for the Austrian territory in 2008.
February 2014 the German Federal Cartel Office („FCO“) published in its decision B9-66/10 the prohibition of the so-called most favoured treatment clause (“MFT-clause”) of the hotel provider HRS-Hotel Reservation Service Robert Ragge GmbH (“HRS”).
The European Commission (“Commission”) imposed fines of EUR 61 Mio. on nine companies for their involvement in the calcium carbide cartel. Parent companies Gigaset AG (“Gigaset”, formerly Arques Industries AG) and Evonik Degussa GmbH (“Degussa”) were amongst the ones fined for the direct involvement of their subsidiary SKW Stahl-Metallurgie GmbH (“SKW”) in the cartel.
On 22 June 2009 the European Commission (“Commission”) had imposed fines in total of EUR 61 Mio against manufacturers of calcium carbide and magnesium based reagents for their participation in the calcium carbide cartel. The manufacturers concerned agreed between April 2004 and January 2007 on prices, quota- and customer allocation and exchanged information regarding prices, customers and sales volumes.
On 07 October 2011 the European Commission (“Commission”) approved the acquisition of Skype Global Sàrl (“Skype”) by Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”).
On 10 December 2013 the European Commission (“Commission”) imposed fines of a total amount of over EUR 16 Mio against two companies in the pharmaceutical industry for delaying the introduction of the generic analgesic Fentanyl into the market.
On 05 December 2013 the European Commission (“Commission”) adopted the package to simplify its procedures for reviewing concentrations und the European Merger Regulation (“ECMR”), which has been applicable since 01.01.2014. The Commission also reduced the scope of required documents for all the notification procedures.
Alpenmilch Salzburg Gesellschaft mbH (“Alpenmilch Salzburg”) and Käsehof GmbH (“Käsehof”) notified on 09 February 2012 the acquisition of 51% of shares of Käsehof by Alpenmilch Salzburg to the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (“BWB”).
On 20 October 2004 the European Commission ("Commission") imposed a fine of EUR 2.59 mio jointly and severally against the US company Dimon Inc. ("Dimon") for the participation in a cartel in the Spanish raw tobacco market by its subsidiary Agroexpansión SA ("Agroexpansión"). The cartel had started in 1996 and concerned fixing of delivery rates and territorial agreements. Both companies objected the Commission’s decision requesting either the annulment or at least a reduction of the fine.
In 2007 the European Commission (“Commission”) imposed fines on eleven companies totaling EUR 750 Mio for bid rigging gas insulated switchgears sold to public utility companies.
In 2010 the European Commission (“Commission”) fined 17 bathroom equipment manufacturers for price fixing in six European countries for at least 12 years. The fine totaled an amount of EUR 622 Mio.
On 13 September 2006, the European Commission (“Commission”) imposed fines in the amount of EUR 267 million to companies for their antitrust infringements regarding road bitumen in the Netherlands.
In 2008 the European Commission (“Commission”) imposed a fine of over EUR 675 Mio. on nine companies for participating in a cartel lead by Sasol Ltd. from 1992 to 2005. The illegal agreements involved price fixing, market allocation and exchange of sensitive information regarding paraffin wax.
On 11 March 2008 the European Commission (“Commission”) imposed several fines on Belgian moving companies on their participation in a cartel of direct and indirect price fixing and bid rigging (see in Case COMP/38.543 – International Removal Services). One of the cartel participants was the Gosselin Group NV (“Gosselin”), whose shares were held to 92% by Stichting Administratiekantoor Portielje (“Portielje”) and to 8% by Vivet en Gosselin NV, in which Portielje in turn holds 99.87%.
On 20 June 2013, the European Commission launched another consultation process on its merger control regime, this time focusing on two main topics: (i) minority shareholdings and (ii) case referrals between the European Commission and national competition authorities
In 1994 the freight forwarder conference (“FFC”) of carriers was established to promote competition by creating equal conditions amongst its members. Two years later, the FFC was qualified both by lawyers and by the Austrian Cartel Court as a de minimis cartel according to Austrian competition law. The application of European competition law was supposed to be not applicable due to the lack of interstate trade.
On June 11, 2013 the European Commission („Commission“) published a draft directive regarding compensation claims for victims of antitrust infringements.
Currently, the European Commission ("Commission") conducts consultation processes regarding (i) the field of unfair trading practices...
Im Sommer 2012 haben sich mehr als 20 europäische Hersteller von Solarpaneelen und Schlüsselkomponenten zum Ad-hoc-Branchenverband EU ProSun zusammengeschlossen...
Within the last six months, the European Court of Justice ("ECJ") has dealt with preliminary rulings concerning (i) whether wrong legal advice...
Within the last few months, the most significant case in antitrust law concerned Microsoft. The European Commission ("Commission") fined the software...
In 2007 the European Commission (“Commission”) imposed fines on participants of the bitumen cartel in Spain totaling EUR 183 Mio. The infringements involved the establishment of market quotas, allocation of sales for volumes and customers, monitoring of market sharing agreements by exchange of sensitive market information, mutual compensation for deviations from the market sharing agreements and price fixing. The Spanish subsidiaries of the Portuguese Galp Energia (“Galp Energía”) and Swedish Nynäs Petroleum (“Nynäs”) were members of the cartel and decided to appeal the Commission’s decision.
