Kluwer Competition Law Blog

The feud between the Chinese Internet companies Qihoo 360 Technology Co., Ltd. (‘Qihoo 360’) and Tencent Inc. (‘Tencent’) has been simmering for nearly two years. This article spotlights the facts and major issues of the dispute.

The Facts

Tencent runs QQ, the most popular instant messaging (‘IM’) service in the mainland China with over 700 million active users by the end of 2011. Tencent also provides information security products, search engine, online media, gaming, interactive entertainment, e-commerce, etc. Qihoo 360 is China’s leading Internet security product and service provider and had over 400 million active users by the end of 2011.

Tencent and Qihoo 360 offer rival [...]

A recent CC decision, Stericycle/Ecowaste Southwest, in which it prohibited a completed merger and required the divestment of the acquired business, is a salutary reminder to companies that do not wait for merger clearance before completing their transaction.

Legal change sometimes takes unpredictable paths: mid-April, something important happened for European law in Luxembourg, but this did not come from the European Court of Justice (the “ECJ”).

Not every reader of this blog is necessarily aware that the ECJ has a sister European Court in Luxembourg, which is called the EFTA Court. This Court has jurisdiction with regard to the EFTA States that are parties to the EEA Agreement (at present Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway). It delivers only a limited number of judgments every year, but they often are interesting reads. Since EEA law very much mirrors EU law, these judgments constitute a significant source of inspiration for EU law itself [...]

The Institute of European and International Business Law from the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland is pleased to invite you to the 19th St.Gallen International Competition Law Forum ICF on June 7th and 8th 2012. Once again, leading experts in national, European and international competition law will come together to discuss and share their ideas on the latest trends and developments in the field and their practical implications.

The St.Gallen International Competition Law Forum ICF prides itself on being one of the most established events of its kind in Europe. It attracts influential policy shapers, this year, for example, Joaquín Almunia (European Commissioner for Competition), Andrea [...]

At the end of March, the European Commission fined Czech energy companies Energetický a průmyslový and EP Investment Advisors EUR2.5 million for obstructing a dawn raid which European Commission officials carried out as part of an antitrust investigation.

This is the first time that the European Commission has fined a company for the specific violation of obstructing IT searches during a dawn raid.

What happened?
The European Commission raided the companies’ premises in Prague in November 2009. On arrival, the inspectors asked that the email account of certain key individuals be blocked until further notice. This is the European Commission’s standard dawn raid procedure, and is aimed to [...]

In March 2011, the U.K. Government Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (“BIS”) consulted on proposed reforms to the U.K. competition regime. The objectives were lofty (“improving the robustness of decisions,” “supporting the competition authorities in taking forward high impact cases,” and “improving speed and predictability for businesses”) and the proposals in part structural (most notably to merge the OFT and CC). Naturally, the consultation generated a great deal of interest and was used as a platform to move forward various raging debates (e.g., the appropriateness of an antitrust agency as investigatory, prosecutor, and decision maker). Last week, BIS issu [...]