This report provides a detailed overview of policy and legislative initiatives together with decisions of the European Commission on EU Competition Law in 2015. The report is divided into two documents: (i) a Communication and (ii) a Commission Staff Working paper describing the developments in more detail (the latter being only available in English, French and German).
The report informs that the Commission in 2015 cleared 318 mergers (among which 20 with commitments), issued 7 antitrust/cartel decisions, and approved more than 200 State aid measures.
With regard to this report, Competition Commissioner Mrs. Vestager has highlighted the Commission’s efforts to address harmful tax competition (i.e. decisions regarding the Belgian excess profit scheme, or the Luxemburgish and Dutch decisions related to Fiat and Starbucks respectively).
In addition, she has mentioned the Commission’s commitment with the Digital Single Market initiative and the on-going e-commerce sector inquiry, which already has revealed some initial findings in March 2016. In this area, the Commission also sent a Statement of Objections to Google last April in relation to the Android operating system and applications.
The full text of this report is available at the following links:
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/publications/annual_report/2015/part1_en.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/publications/annual_report/2015/part2_en.pdf
