Chillin'Competition

I’ve just returned to Brussels after spending a great day of immersion into Korean culture in Frankfurt. The Korean Fair Trade Commission invited me to speak about international cartels to approximately 100 Korean executives of Korean companies operating in Europe within the framework of an Anti-Cartel Workshop [check out the program: Anti-cartel workshop :)]  I had a great time in our very unorthodox and fun session as well as in the different social events with which they treated me afterwards. To all of them: 감사합니다 !!   We have more things to tell you about this event and about recent trends in cartel case-law, but, first, let’s deal with today’s big news:

This morning the General Court issued its judgment with regard to the periodic penalty payment of 899 million euros that the Commission imposed on Microsoft for not complying adequately with the Commission’s 2004 infringement decision and, in particular, with the obligation to provide interoperability information under reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions. (Click here to read the Judgment).

We believe this post is the first hastily written analysis of the Judgment. Apologies for the long post, but this time we think we have something interesting to say.

[btw, you might recall that in previous posts we talked about the Hearing in this case (here), and even provided you with the report for the hearing (see here)].

I have only had time to skim through the Judgment, but here’s how I think its main points can be interpreted: Read the rest of this entry »