Trends in European Competition Law

I'm Michael Foulkes, Principle Research Specialist for Competition in which involves overseeing all of our legal research into Competition law in the UK, continental Europe and certain jurisdictions in the Middle East and Africa.

I have found particularly interesting since focusing on competition law across the region, is the extent to which competition lawyers are becoming involved in areas that may not traditionally have fallen in their remit – particularly in relation to the Digital Markets Act, which at first glance seems to be something that would go straight into a TMT submission. 

However, the technology sector is a key area of interest for all competition authorities, so I expect to see plenty more matters involving Google, Meta and Apple on submissions this year! 

For competition lawyers who are also football fans this is proving to be a particularly interesting time as well with the European Super League case still ongoing and the recent Financial Fair Play decision in the UK against Manchester City. 

Teams such as Manchester City and Paris Saint Germain will also doubtless be interested in the progress of the European Commission’s attempt to apply state aid legislation to non-member nations. 

State aid continues to be a key topic across the continent, and as part of our research in the UK we have published an article on our website on the new subsidy control regime, which we hope will be the first in a series of monthly articles about competition law trends. 

Given the importance of state aid currently, one area that we may look to expand in some jurisdictions is by adding state aid sub-tables to highlight individuals who are particularly focused on that area.