Month: June 2013

NLU-O Journal on Competition Law and Policy

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National Law University, Orissa is the first Law School/University in the country to (finally!!) come out with a law journal dedicated to competition law. Introducing the JOURNAL ON COMPETITION LAW AND POLICY !! 🙂

Personally, am glad we finally have a journal other than the Manupatra Competition Law Reports (CompLR) for competition law. Whislt taking nothing away from CompLR, it is my personal opinion that  dedicated academic jounals published on a non-for -profit basis by a Law School/University generally have articles with more indepth research.

The Call for Papers can be found here. (Via www.lawctopus.com) The last date for submissions is 1st August, 2013

Lundbeck et. al. (COMP/39226) – European Commission

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If Ranbaxy’s trouble with the F.D.A. in the U.S.A. and in India wearnt enough, it has now beeen slapped with the fine of  10.3 million Euros by the European Commission for anti-competitive practices  in delaying the entry of the  generic drug Citalopram into the markets European Economic Area (E.E.A.).

According to the Press Release by the Commission,

 

“The European Commission has imposed a fine of € 93,8 million on Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck and fines totalling € 52,2 million on several producers of generic medicines. In 2002, Lundbeck agreed with each of these companies to delay the market entry of cheaper generic versions of Lundbeck’s branded citalopram, a blockbuster antidepressant. These agreements violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit anticompetitive agreements (Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – TFEU). These generic companies were notably Alpharma (now part of Zoetis), Merck KGaA/Generics UK (Generics UK is now part of Mylan), Arrow (now part of Actavis), and Ranbaxy. (Emphasis added)

….

Citalopram is a blockbuster antidepressant medicine and was Lundbeck’s best-selling product at the time. After Lundbeck’s basic patent for the citalopram molecule had expired, it only held a number of related process patents which provided a more limited protection. Producers of cheaper, generic versions of citalopram therefore had the possibility to enter the market. Indeed, one of them had actually started selling its own generic version of citalopram and several other producers had made serious preparations to do so.

….

 

But instead of competing, the generic producers agreed with Lundbeck in 2002 not to enter the market in return for substantial payments and other inducements from Lundbeck amounting to tens of millions of euros….”

 

Ranbaxy plans to appeal against the decision and fine.

 

P.S.: Not sure if this is the correct citation for unreported Commission Orders. Please do correct me if am wrong.

 

Competition World (By Norton Rose)

I recently came across a Newsletter/Bulletin published by Norton Rose in May 2013 titled “Competition World: A Global Survey of recent Competition and Antitrust Law Developments with Practice Relevance.” I haven’t had the chance to read the full document, but a quick glance made it out to be an excellent summary on all the key competition law developments around the world. Though the Bulletin primarily focuses on the E.U., it also notes developments in Africa, Asia, America and Australia.

P.S.: For the record, this is not a sponsored post.

Why the CCI Google Investigation faces Difficulty.

A recent Economic Times Article states that the “probe by Indian authorities to examine if Google abused its dominant position in the Internet search engine market is progressing at a sluggish pace, mainly due to a lack of understanding on Internet-related issues.” Furthermore, it also stated that “India (presumably through the C.C.I.) has sought the FTC’s help in this matter.”

While the reason stated above is probably true, I feel another important reason the investigation faces difficulty is becaue of the direction the D. G. Office seems to be taking to reach its goal. This is evident from the second line quoted above, where the article states that the C.C.I. is looking for aid from the F.T.C. There is no harm in asking for aid from others, but in this case, the Commission may be asking for aid from the wrong people. One needs to understand that the F.T.C. and the European Commission have SETTLED their cases with Google on the basis of certain commitments they received from the company. (See here for the F.T.C. commitments and here for the E.U. commitments). It is more than evident from their respective press release and the commitments received from Google that both the competition authorities never approached the investigation with an intention to prosecute. Their primary intention was merely to ensure competitiveness without disrupting the market (being the internet search engine market and online advertisement market) to the best possible extent. The merits of such an approach are of course debatable, but are presently outside the scope of this post. What is important is that settlements require a mediative approach (far different from an adjudicatory approach) and this is not the approach the C.C.I. wishes to follow. Even if it wishes to, it as of now can’t, as explained in a previous post.

It is better if the Commission looks eastwards to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (A.C.C.C.) for help. The judgement of the Federal Court of Australia is the only case which Google has lost on allegations against its Adwords programme, which is the primary subject of investigation even in India.Google-confused