This is the July 2026 edition of our Competition Law in the Digital Age newsletter. Our quarterly publication provides insights on modern-day competition law developments in a bite-sized format.
This edition focuses on:
1. the key points of the EU draft merger guidelines that may be especially relevant for mergers involving tech companies and digital platforms and ecosystems;
2. the interim measures imposed by the European Commission on Meta to guarantee free access to Whatsapp for rival AI assistants;
3. the sanctions against Apple in a landmark distribution case, which have been confirmed by the French Supreme Court;
4. online distributors that got excluded by HP for using HP ink cartridges as clickbait in their web shops to sell their private-label cartridges;
5. the market investigation into the quantum computing sector by the Italian competition authority.
You can access the newsletter here.
The newsletter is produced jointly by the Best Friends group: BonelliErede, Bredin Prat, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Hengeler Mueller, Slaughter and May and Uría Menéndez. In addition to sharing a joint office in Brussels, we cooperate in the area of competition law by working together on cases, exchanging lawyers and pooling our know-how and expertise. We also jointly develop trainings for clients and products like the Best Friends dawn raid site (available at www.europeandawnraids.com − you can download the link to your smartphone). We believe that together our cross-border capabilities in Europe are second to none.
We hope that you will find the publication of interest and welcome any feedback or suggestions of topics for future editions.
