Does the French Lego Case Threaten the Building Blocks of Your Pricing Policy for Online Sellers? | K&L Gates LLP jdsupra.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from jdsupra.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Monday, February 22, 2021
Autorité de la concurrence or ADC) adopted a decision
1 accepting commitments from the building block producer Lego France (Lego) to amend its discount policy. The ADC concluded that Lego’s policy created a price differentiation that “was likely to handicap” pure online players, since they were de facto unable to access certain of Lego’s discounts linked to functions carried out only by physical stores (such as the shelf space reserved for Lego products). As a result, Lego has agreed to redefine its rebate award criteria by making them more accessible and transparent to all resellers.
This alert considers if brands should be concerned by the ADC’s conservative and surprising approach to dual pricing, which in our view is inconsistent with the European Commission’s (Commission) direction of travel at European Union (EU) level and fails to recognise the inherent differences in the costs of online versus offline selling.
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Dear readers, this month we are highlighting Germany s reform of its competition law, which came into force on 19 January. Enjoy your reading!
Germany equips its Competition Authority for the challenges of the digital age
On January 19, 2021, the tenth amendment to the Act against Restraints of Competition (ARC) came into force equipping the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) with far reaching powers vis-à-vis digital platforms.
A. New supervision tool
At the core of the amendment is a new ex-ante regulation. The new instrument’s aim is to give the German Federal Cartel Office (“
GlobalWafers starts extra period for Siltronic bid
By Lisa Wang / Staff reporter
GlobalWafers Co Ltd (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 supplier of silicon wafers, yesterday said it has started the additional acceptance period for its all-cash tender for Siltronic AG after achieving the minimum acceptance threshold of 50 percent.
The Hsinchu-based wafer maker said it had reached 56.92 percent in the voluntary public tender offer during the main offer period from Dec. 21 last year to Thursday last week.
That helped boost GlobalWafers and its wholly-owned subsidiary GlobalWafers GmbH’s combined Sitronic shareholding to 13.6 percent, from 6.06 percent, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. The tender offer is conducted through GlobalWafers GmbH.
ARC ), entered into force last week following its publication in the Federal Law Gazette.
The focus of the amendment can already be seen from its title. The Act Amending the Act against Restraints of Competition for a Focused, Proactive and Digital Competition Law 4.0 and amending other competition law provisions (GWB Digitalisation Act) regulates issues relating, in particular, to the steady advance of digitalization. It is essentially about the power of Internet platforms.
Other important amendments relate to the area of merger control. In the future, fewer mergers will have to be registered as the turnover thresholds have been raised. However, on the other hand, the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt, FCO) will be able to require companies in certain sectors to notify mergers for merger control even below the turnover thresholds.