CONSORTIA AND COMPETITION LAW

Kyriakos Fountoukakos (EMEA Regional Head of Competition, Regulation and Trade) and Kian O'Connell (Legal Stagiaire) in our Brussels office have recently co-authored an article on EU competition law considerations in relation to consortia, published by Competition Policy International.

Consortia are a joint entity consisting of several companies or organisations formed for a specific purpose and, up to now, there has been very limited guidance in case law and in the existing horizontal cooperation guidelines. However, the European Commission’s draft revision of the horizontal cooperation guidance published on March 1, 2022, clarifies for the first time their content, criteria and specific examples of possible infringements of EU competition law.

This article explains the steps to be taken in light of the consortia-related aspects set out in the above-mentioned revised guidelines and elaborates on some of the competition law risks associated with the establishment of consortia in procurement processes (tenders) and M&A deals.

Their article 'Consortia and Competition Law' was published in the August 2022 edition of CPI's Antitrust Chronicle, which features articles from members of the CPI Editorial Advisory Board.

Download a copy of the article here.