Competition law applies horizontally in all sectors, in addition to sector-specific regulation. The rise of the digital economy is challenging traditional competition law approaches.

Cullen International’s Competition Law service combines unbiased alerts and reports with a structured database of more than 350 English language summaries of national and EU antitrust and merger control cases, organised by country, authority, theme and sector.

Stay tuned over the next weeks for our coverage of five intriguing pending cases that you may not have known about!

Case 1: Suspected killer acquisition of nascent rival

In the digital economy, acquisitions by market leaders of innovative start-ups is one of the most intensely debated competition law issues. Some commentators support shifting the burden of proof from the competition authorities onto tech giants, which should prove that such an acquisition will not harm competition.

In our first highlighted case, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating PayPal’s US$2.2bn (€1.9bn) takeover of Swedish mobile payments company iZettle.

One of the CMA’s competition concerns is that the merger eliminates in the UK a potential competitor for PayPal in emerging payment markets.

1 May 2019: Update covering further case developments published.

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