Chillin'Competition

In the past few days there have been several publications on which we hadn´t had the chance to comment:

Some days ago the European Commission published  a document stating its position regarding the nowadays common claims on inability to pay made by undertakings on which a fine has been imposed. Interestingly, the document was published on a Commission´s site on transparency, but not on DG Comp´s website.

Last week, DG COMP also launched the public consultation on collective redress  (thanks to P. Sabbadini for immediately pointing us to this). 

On the European Courts side (and aside from an arguably insufficient but nevertheless welcome fine reduction that some colleages of mine got in the Spanish raw tobacco case), Advocate General Kokott issued a very important Opinion in the Greek decoders case (the one concerning Karen Murphy, the owner of the Red White & Blue pub in Portsmouth,  who cancelled her licence with BSkyB -who holds the right to broadcast live Premier League games in the UK-, and instead signed up with a Greek provider and imported its decoders). The matter eventually arrived at the ECJ by way of a reference for a preliminary ruling. In her Opinion, AG Kokott considers that “territorial exclusivity agreements relating to the transmission of football matches are contrary to EU law“. Were the Court to follow its Advocate General, its Judgment would constitute a  revolution  that would shock the world of sports in a way only comparable to the Bosman Judgment, not to mention its potential implications for the cinema and TV industries in general.  We´ll post a comment on the Opinion here as part of our “Competition Law & Sport” series as soon as we get the time to read it and think it through.

And speaking of publications, there´s a new journal which might be of interest to many of us: the Journal of Universal Rejection They will reject absolutely everything submitted to them   🙂