Topic: Collective bargaining agreements

The Competition Commission of South Africa is set to probe concerns about the relationship between digital platforms and news publishers, including how new technologies such as ChatGPT use media content.

20 March 2023

Germany’s competition authority has alleged that a syndicate of associations representing medical aid providers unlawfully banded together across the country to force health insurers to charge higher prices for their products.

25 January 2023

The European Commission has adopted new guidelines clarifying when self-employed people, such as actors, musicians and gig workers, can collectively negotiate better working conditions without breaching the bloc’s competition rules.

29 September 2022

Germany’s Federal Cartel Office is investigating whether a group of medical equipment associations violated cartel or abuse of dominance rules by banding together to demand higher prices from health insurers.

24 March 2022

An Australian court has held that one of the country’s largest private construction companies and an industry trade union illegally entered into an agreement to boycott a subcontractor at a building site in Brisbane.

14 February 2022

Collective agreements between self-employed workers and digital labour platforms fall outside EU competition rules, according to new draft guidance from the European Commission.

10 December 2021

The Dutch competition authority has terminated a cartel investigation into supermarkets that allegedly fixed wages through an industry association, after a new collective bargaining agreement was struck between the employers and their employees’ labour union.

29 November 2021

The Portuguese Competition Authority has accused five hospitals and their business association of coordinating negotiation strategies to fix prices of services offered to public agencies, but lawyers have warned the case could mean “the end of collective bargaining” for professional organisations.

30 July 2021

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has launched its first-ever class exemption from competition law, allowing small businesses, franchisees and fuel retailers to collectively bargain without first seeking approval.

03 June 2021

News in brief from around the Asia-Pacific region… China doesn’t seem to be slowing down its crackdown on major homegrown technology companies, with reports of a major fine being readied against Tencent and a probe being launched against food delivery giant Meituan. Meanwhile, Australia’s competition watchdog has permitted a group of independent newspapers to collectively seek payment from Facebook and Google for displaying their articles.

30 April 2021