THE EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE REJECTED GOOGLE’S APPEAL AGAINST THE JUDGMENT OF THE GENERAL COURT AND CONFIRMED THE PENALTY IMPOSED FOR GOOGLE’S ABUSE OF DOMINANCE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ANDROID OPERATING SYSTEM

Thomas Vinje, Professor II on the Faculty of Law at UiB and Chair Emeritus of Clifford Chance’s Global Antitrust Group, visits BECCLE to discuss the key issues addressed by the Court in case C-738/22 P, Google Android. He will be joined by Katharine Missenden, Counsel at Clifford Chance Brussels.

Thomas and Katharine will focus on the key issues of principle at issue on the appeal, including

• To prove an Article 102 infringement, must the Commission undertake a (but-for) counterfactual analysis proving what the competitive situation would have been had the dominant company not engaged in the contested conduct?
• To establish an Article 102 infringement, are the Commission (and the General Court) systematically required to extend their examination beyond the capacity of the dominant player’s conduct to restrict competition and to assess whether that conduct was capable specifically of foreclosing competitors as efficient as the dominant company?
• In establishing infringement, must the entire factual and commercial context be taken into account in assessing whether an abuse has occurred – including conduct that has itself been found not to be abusive?

Thomas filed the complaint on behalf of FairSearch against Google that led the European Commission to pursue its case against Google on its Android-related conduct.  He pursued the complaint throughout the administrative proceedings leading to the Commission’s decision against Google and represented FairSearch in support of the European Commission in Google’s appeal before the General Court and Court of Justice of the European Union.  Katharine worked with Thomas on the appeals before both European Courts.

Location: Faculty of Law, University of Bergen, Auditorium 3
When: Thursday 1. October,  10:15-11.30

The seminar will be streamed and a zoom link will come here: