Competition & State Aid

Bundeskartellamt vs Meta: what now?

The European Court of Justice recently ruled on a high-profile case with far-reaching consequences for enforcement in the fields of competition and data protection. We have discussed the verdict’s implications with Cristina Caffarra, renowned competition expert, and Johnny Ryan, senior…

What about Microsoft? (Part 2)

The European Commission’s cases against Microsoft in the 2000s set the framework for the assessment of abusive conduct related to product integration and interoperability, and Microsoft became the first “big tech” company with direct experience…

What about Microsoft? (Part 1)

Depending on the day of the week, Microsoft is the most valuable company in the world, or at least in the top 5. It’s one of GAFAM, the five “big tech” companies presumptively labeled as…

Gaming Industry Consolidation

At the start of 2022, the gaming market was shaken up by a series of acquisitions, including Microsoft/Activison Blizard, Sony/Bungee and – last but not least – New York Times/Wordle. In this episode, we examine…

The CMA’s FB/GIPHY Decision

In May 2020, Facebook (now Meta) acquired the gif library GIPHY. The UK’s competition authority (the CMA) started investigating the merger and finally, in November 2021, ordered Facebook to sell GIPHY again. In this episode,…