The proceedings brought by the European Commission against Google are nearing a – provisional – end with the prospect of a decision making binding on Google a revised set of commitments (see here for the Commission statement and here for the full text of the proposed commitments). Independently of their merits in addressing the Commission’s…

On June 29, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) set aside the judgment of the General Court (GC) in the Alrosa case and dismissed Alrosa’s action on the merits. In the procedural economy/due process conundrum raised by negotiated procedures – Article 9 commitment proceedings in the case a quo – the ECJ decided in favor of the former: “the Commission has a wide discretion to make a proposed commitment binding or to reject it” (¶94). In that sense, Alrosa constitutes clearly a victory for the Commission, but one that raises more questions than it solves, I am afraid.