The European Commission has launched an in-depth investigation under the EU Merger Regulation to review the proposed acquisition of Figma by Adobe. The Commission has concerns that the transaction may reduce competition in the global markets for the supply of interactive product design software and for digital asset creation tools. Adobe is a global software…
James Bessen’s The New Goliaths landed on this reader’s desk for review just as the present AI fanfare started to gain momentum. While the book offers little in the way of concrete predictions as to the development of competition and innovation in AI, its prescience should not be underestimated. Indeed, this eminently readable account of…
UK law Platform Operators (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2023 made The Platform Operators (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2023 (SI 2023/817) have been made. They come into force on 1 January 2024. They implement the OECD (2020), Model Rules for Reporting by Platform Operators with respect to Sellers in the Sharing and Gig…
As the sun rises, a worker prepares for yet another gruelling day at work. For eight hours, their weary eyes confront a barrage of disturbing posts that plunge into the abyss of humanity’s darkest corners: texts, videos and images of suicides, beheadings, explicit sexual acts and other harmful content demand their unwavering attention. They are…
Since issuing a call for evidence in 2021, the UK government has developed proposals for consultation, setting out the next steps in reforming the product safety regulatory framework. It points out that from online marketplaces to connected devices, they way people buy products and the products themselves have gone through huge changes in recent years…
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The European Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Microsoft may have breached UK competition rules by tying or bundling its communication and collaboration product Teams to its popular suites for businesses: Office 365 and Microsoft 365. Microsoft is a global technology company offering productivity and business software, cloud computing and personal computing….
UK law Court of Appeal rules that technical trade secrets should not be disclosed in order after judgment The case arose in the context of a decision by the Patents Court that a patent was valid and infringed. The parties involved had a further dispute about confidentiality issues regarding the order the Court was going…
In response to competition concerns raised by the CMA, Amazon has offered commitments not to use Marketplace seller data and to treat all sellers’ offers equally when selecting which to feature in the ‘Buy Box’. The CMA considers that these commitments would ensure third-party sellers’ product offers have a fair chance of being prominently displayed…
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The Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 has received Royal Assent. The Act is based very closely on a draft Bill published by the Law Commission in March 2022. It allows for the legal recognition of trade documents such as bills of lading and bills of exchange in electronic form. It was first introduced into the…
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The UK government has published its response following its consultation about its Online Advertising Programme. The Online Advertising Programme reviewed the regulatory framework of paid-for online advertising to tackle the “evident lack of transparency and accountability across the whole supply chain”. The government says that there were some clear themes amongst the responses, notably that…
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