Articles for tag: merger control, Meta, tech giants

Big Tech Antitrust Scrutiny Across the Atlantic

As Europeans await the European Commission’s enforcement of new tech rules, recent developments in the U.S. remind us that Big Tech scrutiny has been a transatlantic concern. On April 14, 2025, a trial began at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is challenging Meta’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram under U.S. antitrust laws. This landmark case raises novel legal issues about mergers that were previously cleared a decade ago and highlights U.S. enforcers’ continued efforts to curb Big Tech power.

21. April 2025

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Overcoming Big Tech AI Merger Evasions: Innovating EU Competition Law through the AI Act

To develop AI, computing power and access to data (aka bigness) are crucial. Now, Big Tech companies appear evading EU competition law. Companies like Google and Microsoft evade the EU Merger Regulation by entering partnerships with smaller AI labs that fall short of shifting ownership but nevertheless increase the monopolistic power of Big Tech. These quasi-mergers are particularly problematic in the context of generative AI, which relies even more than many other services on incredibly vast computing power. That is a dire state from an economic as well as a more fundamental and democratic perspective, as concentrating economic might in the hands of very few companies may cause problems down the road.

29. April 2024

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In Search of a Role for the Member States and the EU to Establish an Investment Screening Mechanism

Investments in enterprises, which are relevant for public security and services, are an important source of growth, jobs and innovations. But such investments can be detrimental to the security of supply for the community members – for example, when a state owned enterprise, which is located in a third state, gets control over the only electricity station in a Member State.

15. Februar 2019

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Access to Legal Redress in an EU Investment Screening Mechanism

The proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for screening of foreign direct investments into the European Union (Draft Proposal) presupposes (some would even say: proposes) investment screening and control mechanisms (ISCMs) at member state level. Approaching ISCMs from the angle of legal redress raises three questions: Legal redress to what end? Legal redress by who? Legal redress by which material standards? Sorting out these questions is of vital interest for stakeholders. For investors and their counsel confronted with a new layer of regulation and uncertainty, as much as for member states ... continue reading

8. Februar 2019

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Investment Screening in the Defence Industry – News from the Bermuda Triangle of EU Law

The national investment screening mechanisms for the defence and security sector are the Doyen of the existing screening mechanisms, and their bases in EU secondary and primary law are not so hidden. The discrimination of investors on grounds of nationality have some specific bases in topical EU Regulations or Directives, but most importantly in the EU-Treaties themselves: Article 346 TFEU allows Member States to prevent foreign investments on grounds of national security considerations, and that, interestingly, irrespective of a takeover attempt from a company from inside the European Union, or from a third country. Before taking a closer look at ... continue reading

7. Februar 2019

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