EU and European National Competition Authorities agree on best practices concerning cross-border mergers

By Till Patrik Holterhus, MLE.

The European National Competition Authorities ("NCAs") and the European Commission have agreed on “Best Practices on Cooperation between EU National Competition Authorities in Merger Review”. The Best Practices aim to foster cooperation and information sharing between the NCAs and the European Union regarding mergers that do not fall into the EU merger jurisdiction (“one-stop shop review”) but require multiple filings in several Member States.

EU Commission halts the artificial inflation of “Mobile Termination Rates” (MTR) by Polish telecom regulator

By Pola Karolczyk, Attorney at law, LL.M. candidate

In its letter to the Polish telecom regulator (“UKE”) sent on November 21, 2011 the European Commission objected to the increase of the MTR for one of the mobile operators - Aero2 and pointed out that this increase was not supported by a properly conducted market analysis.

Central America comes to an agreement with the EU to create a Central American competition organization and accompanying legislation

By Gabriel Guardado

Central America is currently in the final stages of agreeing to an Association Agreement with the European Union, which includes free trade, cooperation and channels for political dialog. The language has been agreed upon, including its charter, which refers to trade and competition.

Memorandum opinion in United States vs. H&R Block now available

By Till Patrik Holterhus, MLE.

The Memorandum Opinion in United States vs. H&R Block was finally released on the 10th of November, 2011. It is the first completely litigated case since United States vs. Oracle in 2004 and includes some really interesting findings.

The Mexican Federal Competition Commission’s highest fine ever

By Norma Cerros

On April 25, 2011, the Mexican Federal Competition Commission (“COFECO”) moved to sanction Mexico’s largest mobile telephone service provider, Radiomovil Dipsa, S.A de C.V. (“Telcel”), with a fine of almost 12,000 million Mexican pesos (approximately USD $880,527,142) due to repeated incidents of monopolistic practice set forth in article 10, item XI of the Federal Economic Competition Law (“FECL”). The law is implicated due to an abuse of dominant market power in the relevant market of call termination in the mobile telephone industry by improperly displacing its competitors, and thus affecting the competition process to the detriment of consumers. The COFECO has also ordered Telcel to cease the anticompetitive behavior.

DOJ prevents H&R block acquisition as epic battle with AT&T looms

By Paul Goodwin, JD Candidate 

In what may be one of the more ironic uses of taxpayer-funded litigation, the DOJ scored an important victory by preventing tax-prep software company H&R Block’s acquisition of its competitor - TaxAct. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled in favor of the government's argument. According to the DOJ the merger had a strong likelihood of leading to a lessening of competition in the digital tax-preparation software market. The government argued that H&R Block would acquire market power that could lead to an increase in prices. As such, the merger could cause Americans to spend more of their hard earned money for this type of software, money that consumers already resent having to spend on tax-preparation services to conquer a byzantine tax code.