The Antitrust Week In Review

Here are some of the developments in antitrust news this past week that we found interesting and are following.

Facebook owner Meta makes antitrust commitments over online advertising.  France’s anti-trust watchdog body said that it had approved commitments made by Facebook owner Meta Platforms regarding the French online advertising sector. Meta has committed to giving access over a five-year period to advertising inventories and campaign data to so-called advertising technology companies on transparent, objective and predictable conditions, the French regulator said. “It’s the first time Meta makes commitments to a competition authority (over the ad sector),” said the French competition authority’s vice-chairman Henri Piffaut.

Qualcomm wins fight against $1 bln EU antitrust fine.  U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm won its fight against a 997 million euro ($1.05 billion) fine imposed by EU antitrust regulators four years ago, dealing a major setback to EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s crackdown on Big Tech. The European Commission in its 2018 decision said Qualcomm paid billions of dollars to Apple from 2011 to 2016 to use only its chips in all its iPhones and iPads in order to block out rivals such as Intel Corp. Qualcomm’s fine is one of several imposed by Vestager on companies over anti-competitive practices. The General Court, Europe’s second-highest, annulled the EU finding and faulted the EU competition enforcer over the handling of the case.

Edited by Gary J. Malone