A View from Constantine Cannon’s London Office

By Yulia Tosheva and James Ashe-Taylor

The European Commission has signalled that it is not dialing down its scrutiny of the telecommunications sector by imposing fines totalling 70 million euros on Slovak Telekom and its parent company, Deutsche Telekom.

On October 15, 2014, the Commission imposed a fine of 38,838,000 euros on Slovak Telekom and Deutsche Telekom for pursuing an abusive strategy designed to exclude competitors from the Slovak market for broadband services for more than five years. Deutsche Telekom was held to be jointly and severally liable for the amount of the fine as it had exercised decisive influence over Slovak Telekom during the period of the infringements.

Deutsche Telekom also received an additional fine of 31,070,000 euros for its recidivist behaviour, based on its record of having been fined by the Commission in 2003 for a margin squeeze in the German broadband market.

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A View from Constantine Cannon’s London Office

By Ana Rojo Prada and James Ashe-Taylor

The European Commission has settled two cartel investigations and sanctioned four major banks in the Swiss Franc-related derivatives market, imposing total fines of approximately 94 million euros, for violations of European Union antitrust rules.

Interest rate derivatives (including swaps, futures and options) are financial products used by banks or companies as insurance mechanisms to manage the risk of interest rate fluctuations.

The first cartel investigation settlement involved collusive behaviour between the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and JPMorgan between March 2008 and July 2009.  The cartel sought to influence the Swiss Franc Libor benchmark interest rate as a means of distorting the pricing of the derivatives indexed on it.  The cartel engaged in discussions concerning one of the bank’s future Swiss Franc Libor rate submissions and exchanged information on trading positions and intended prices.

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A View from Constantine Cannon’s London Office

By Irene Fraile and Richard Pike

The recent judgment by the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) in the MasterCard case is sparking a lively debate about how antitrust enforcement of payment system regimes should evolve in the European Union, as evidenced by an antitrust seminar co-sponsored by Constantine Cannon in Brussels on Monday.

The ECJ’s MasterCard judgment was rendered on September 11, 2014, when it dismissed MasterCard’s final appeal against an antitrust infringement decision adopted by the European Commission in 2007 regarding MasterCard’s Multilateral Interchange Fees (“MIFs”) for cross-border payment card transactions. MIFs are the fees paid by merchants’ banks to card-issuing banks to cover the cost of processing card payments. The ECJ held that the level of those fees had “restrictive effects on competition.”

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By Allison F. Sheedy

Apple’s battle in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit against a court-appointed external antitrust compliance monitor is winding its way through a procedural thicket as the Second Circuit prepares to consider the merits of Apple’s appeal.

Apple is appealing an order by Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York refusing to disqualify the monitor the court appointed to oversee Apple’s antitrust compliance policies, after finding in a bench trial that U.S. Department of Justice and Attorneys General of various states had proved that Apple violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act and related state antitrust laws by conspiring with the publishers to raise e-book prices.

Apple’s disputes with the monitor, Michael Bromwich, began almost as soon as he was appointed by the Judge Cote last fall. Apple complained from the start that he overstepped his mandated responsibilities, and charged exorbitant fees, with no oversight, which Apple is solely responsible for paying. Apple also argued that Bromwich lacked impartiality because of ex parte communications he engaged in with both Judge Cote and the government plaintiffs.

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