Tag: antitrust
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FIFA vs Agents: 1-0 at halftime – AG Emiliou Defends FIFA’s Football Agent Regulations
Introduction In two significant cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Advocate General Emiliou (the AG) delivered his eagerly awaited opinions in RCC Sports v FIFA (C-209/23) and ROGON v German Football Association (C-428/23) on 15 May 2025. The same day, the AG also published his opinion in the case Tondela…
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The CJEU rules in the Diarra case – FIFA’s transfer rules restrict free movement and competition
From a competition law perspective, sport is, in some ways, unlike other industries. It may be driven by ideals other than profit, such as sporting merit and fair play. It also only functions through collaboration: associations, leagues and clubs need to agree on fixture dates and kick-off times, amongst other things. But sport also involves…
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Competition law in sports: it’s time to talk about merger control
When the US hosted the FIFA World Cup in 1994, it was said to have spent $500 million on the tournament. Fast forward to 2022, Qatar reportedly spent a whopping $220 billion. Sport is now “big business” . . . and being big business means competition law scrutiny. There are three main fields of competition…
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AG Opinion in FIFA v BZ – Further competition trouble for football rules
Most professional football transfers happen when a player is free to leave because their contract expires, or when current club, player, and new club come to a mutual transfer agreement. But the world is not perfect. Situations arise where a player does not live up to expectations or does not feature in the manager’s plans.…
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The ACM’s mission to plug the “small acquisitions gap”
In line with recent developments in other countries, the ACM’s chairman Martijn Snoep has expressed a desire for new competences to review relatively small mergers (in size) that fall below the notification thresholds of the Dutch Competition Act (DCA).[1] In the ACM’s view, mergers that fall below these thresholds can nonetheless cause competition problems. In…
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Royal Antwerp – Breaking new ground in antitrust in labour markets
To ensure a steady supply of football talent, professional football clubs must do their bit to invest in grassroots football. To incentivise this investment, UEFA and several national football associations introduced “home-grown player rules”, which dictate that a minimum number of players on the match sheet must be home-grown. However, a player, supported by Royal…
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Super League – From “legislative bomb” to judicial bombshell
Competition law in sports is full of interesting paradoxes. When I was at the Competition and Markets Authority, the news around the creation of the Super League broke, and many stakeholders contacted us because, they said, surely this is a cartel between the participating teams. Of course there was a question then about whether competition…
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CAT’s Liothyronine judgment is notable beyond excessive pricing cases
Last week’s Liothyronine judgment in the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) is essential reading for antitrust practitioners. The CAT upheld the CMA finding of an abuse of dominance but reduced the total fine from £101m to £84m. Liothyronine is one of several excessive pricing cases the CMA has brought in recent years following concerns about…
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Draconian but unavoidable? Illumina’s quest for GRAIL ends in a record fine
Sprint races can be decided by hundredths of a second. But the sprinter who pushes off before the starting gun sounds “jumps the gun” and faces harsh punishment. In our never-ending attempts to make competition law sound cool, practitioners refer to the completion of a deal before mandatory clearance is obtained as “gun jumping”, even…
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Bank bailouts – The antitrust approach
Over the weekend, it became clear that UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse after a hectic weekend of negotiations brokered by Swiss regulator FINMA to safeguard Switzerland’s banking system and attempt to prevent a crisis spreading across global markets. The news followed the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the rescue of First Republic Bank…