International Law Office - Legal Newsletters, Law Firm Directory and Legal News
Legal Newsletters - Archive
Search terms: Competition, Netherlands
Jump to
The Hague Court of Appeal has reversed an earlier district court decision and ruled in favour of Accell Group with regard to its objections against a Competition Authority press release accusing several bicycle manufacturers, including Accell, of price fixing bicycle sales and sharing sensitive competitive information. Accell was not given the opportunity to comment upon the accusations.
A court has ruled that horizontal restrictions in an essentially vertical agreement between a mobile telecommunications company and a service provider were anti-competitive but exempt under the Block Exemption Regulation for Vertical Agreements. This case is one of the last on Article 81(3) exemptions under Dutch competition law as such exemption procedures are no longer possible.
An amendment to the Competition Act entered into force on August 1 2004. It has abolished the individual exemption system and increased the fine for failure to cooperate with the Dutch Competition Authority one hundredfold to €450,000. It also creates explicit powers for the authority to cooperate with the European Commission and other competition authorities.
A Dutch supplier of bull semen has been found guilty of abusing its dominant position on the Dutch market through its operation of rebate schemes intended to enhance loyalty. The Competition Authority rejected the company's arguments that bull semen and test semen were part of the same market and that the geographical market was wider than the Netherlands.
Following an administrative appeal, the Competition Authority has upheld its earlier decision not to grant an exemption for the joint sale through Eredivisie NV of the broadcasting rights to live Premier League matches to Canal Plus. The authority held that the arrangement unnecessarily restricts competition between football clubs and reduces consumers’ freedom of choice.
The Competition Authority recently won the right to take forensic images of computer hard drives. The court found that a forensic image was in essence only a copy of digital data and as such was permissible under the Administrative Act. However, the court imposed a number of conditions on the authority in accessing documents through the forensic image.
