Since the current Italian cabinet was sworn-in in October 2022, it has applied the Italian foreign direct investment (“FDI”) regime in a few relevant cases, which appear to be the bellwether of the new government’s approach to FDI review.
Recent landmark cases include the sale of Lukoil’s Priolo refinery to a Cypriot fund, the sale
On May 10, 2023, the General Court annulled two Commission decisions authorizing a total of EUR 7 billion recapitalization aid granted during the COVID-19 pandemic to air carriers Lufthansa and Scandinavian Airlines (“SAS”), following a challenge brought by rival airlines Ryanair and (for the Lufthansa decision) Condor:[1] i.e., (i) EUR 6 billion from Germany
The CMA has published its Annual Report on the UK’s concurrency arrangements, which came into effect in their current form in 2014. Eight sectoral regulators have competition law powers in the UK, in addition to the CMA as the primary competition authority.[1]
These regulators have powers in their sectors to (i) apply provisions
The explosion in the development of generative AI has been referred to as an “Oppenheimer” moment. Just last week, a group of more than 350 executives and scientists jointly stated that “[m]itigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.” And more
On April 20, 2023, the Commission adopted the 2023 Merger Simplification Package (the “2023 Package”) designed to streamline its procedure under the EU Merger Regulation.[1] In particular, the 2023 Package (1) expands the types of concentration eligible for treatment under the simplified procedure, (2) streamlines the review of both simplified and non-simplified cases,
The UK Government has published its long-awaited Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill, including a wide-ranging and far-reaching set of reforms to UK competition and consumer law, along with a new regulatory regime for digital markets.
The publication of the bill follows the UK Government’s response to its consultations in April-May 2022 (see previous blog
On March 15, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued proposed amendments (the “Proposal”) to Regulation S-P, which governs the treatment of nonpublic personal information about consumers by broker-dealers, registered investment advisers, registered investment companies, and transfer agents. The Proposal would broaden the existing “safeguards” and “disposal” rules under Regulation S-P,
In 2021, the Commission announced that it would revisit 15-25 merger decisions adopted between 2012 and 2018 to evaluate whether its predictions during the merger control process regarding entry, expansion and imports materialized ex post, with the assistance of an external contractor.[1] In February 2023, the Commission issued a request for information in
On August 30, 2022, the Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) published its Annual Report 2021/2022.[1] Andreas Mundt, the President of the FCO, pointed out two areas of the FCO’s focus: First, the collusion of undertakings under the guise of inflation and Russia’s war against Ukraine. Second, to use the flexibility of antitrust law to allow for
The following post was originally included as part of our recently published memorandum “Selected Issues for Boards of Directors in 2023”.
With the various global crises, budget spending to address inflation and post-COVID-19 pandemic effects continuing to weigh on fiscal budgets globally, governments will at some point soon need to recoup lost revenue.