Tag Archives: parent

by | September 30, 2013 · 10:03 am

A family affair: parental liability for joint ventures

It is trite law that a parent company will be liable for antitrust infringements committed by a subsidiary where the parent exercises “decisive influence” over the conduct of the subsidiary. Earlier this year the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) illustrated just how difficult it will be for a company to rebut the presumption of “decisive influence” in the context of a wholly-owned subsidiary (see Kieron Beal’s post here). In two decisions published on Thursday last week, the CJEU pushed the boundaries of parental liability even further, holding that parent companies may be liable for infringements committed by their joint venture companies.

This further affirmation that antitrust liability truly is a “family affair” is likely to have significant and far-reaching implications for the shareholders of such joint ventures. Continue reading →

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by | May 19, 2013 · 2:08 pm

The Sins of the Son or Daughter

Things occasionally have an air of unerring certainty about them. It will rain on the May Day bank holiday weekend. Tottenham will be pipped to fourth place in the Premier League on the last day of the season. Attempts to challenge a Commission finding that a group of companies constitute a single economic entity will fail. So it has proved for Eni SpA, in its failed appeal against the judgment of the General Court in Case T-39/07 Eni v. Commission [2011] ECR II-0000, GC. Continue reading →

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by | February 14, 2013 · 3:55 pm

Subsidiaries as “branches” for undertakings: a new route to jurisdiction under Article 5(5) of the Brussels Regulation?

Stand alone, follow on and hybrid damages claims arising out of multijurisdictional cartels are generating some of the most novel and interesting current problems in conflicts of laws, both in relation to issues of jurisdiction and applicable law. On the jurisdictional side conventional wisdom has it that there are three main routes by which Claimants can seize English jurisdiction.

First, you can find a so-called “Anchor Defendant” that is a cartelist (and it must be an addressee cartelist if in the CAT so long as Mersen is good law) domiciled here, against which you can proceed as of right under Article 2 of the Brussels Regulation.  Then you can bring in other cartelists under Article 6 (i.e. a defendant against whom the claim is closely connected to that against the anchor defendant such that determining them together avoids the risk of irreconcilable judgments).  Where the Anchor Defendant is an addressee of the decision this tactic is unproblematic. Continue reading →

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Filed under Conflicts, Damages, Procedure

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