Organisation: Siemens

The EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation has claimed its first victim: Chinese train maker CRRC. Not only has the European Commission secured a quick victory, but the case validates the enforcer’s decision to block Siemens/Alstom in 2019, according to Benoît Cœuré, the president of France’s Competition Authority. Five years since that prohibition, “Europe is still not flooded with Chinese rolling stock,” he wrote on X. Also in The Briefing, Linklaters announces its latest partner promotions and a Vodafone/MasMovil tie-up faces opposition in Portugal.

27 March 2024

Étienne Chantrel stepped down as head of the mergers unit at France’s Competition Authority last Monday. He spoke to GCR about recent Article 22 referrals, political interference, policing minority shareholdings and the future use of the failing firm defence.

11 March 2024

By using its new Foreign Subsidies Regulation powers to target a Chinese company in a public procurement probe, the European Commission has picked a “textbook” first case that is expected to leave several key questions about its wider approach unanswered.

20 February 2024

Nearly seven months after the EU’s foreign subsidies regulation came into force, the European Commission announced its first in-depth investigation under the new rules today. The probe targets a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned train manufacturer CRRC, which was at the centre of the prohibited Siemens/Alstom deal in 2019. Also in The Briefing, Cisco is optimistic about closing its acquisition of Splunk at an earlier date.

16 February 2024

In-house competition lawyers interviewed as part of the latest edition of GCR’s Corporate Counsel survey have warned of increased risk, uncertainty and politicisation in antitrust enforcement.

07 November 2023

The EU’s General Court has ordered Belgium to claw back €700 million in unpaid taxes from 55 companies, four years after first striking out the European Commission’s original state aid decision.

20 September 2023

BMW, Bosch, and other companies in the automotive industry sector can continue to collaborate on plans to modernise wire harnesses, subject to certain tweaks, Germany’s antitrust watchdog has said.

05 September 2023

Hitachi’s proposed €1.7 billion purchase of Thales no longer raises competition concerns over the supply of communications-based train control signalling systems in the UK, the national competition authority has said, dropping one of its Phase II theories of harm.

23 August 2023

European trade unions have called on Margrethe Vestager to distance her agency from comments by its former chief competition economist suggesting the EU’s heavy industry should “disappear”.

09 August 2023

Samsung, Arçelik and two other Turkish homeware appliance companies are facing €21 million fines from the country’s competition watchdog following an investigation into separate breaches of resale price maintenance rules.

09 August 2023