Topic: Collective bargaining agreements

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

The European Commission wants feedback on how it can ensure self-employed individuals are allowed to collectively bargain without breaching EU competition rules, although some lawyers are sceptical about the scope and impact of its existing proposals.

08 March 2021

France’s Competition Authority has sent Google a statement of objections, accusing the tech company of breaching an interim order that forced it to negotiate an acceptable fee with news publishers for displaying their content.

24 February 2021

Google’s monopoly over digital advertising threatens the very existence of the newspaper industry, a West Virginia publisher has alleged.

02 February 2021

The US government has urged Australia to axe a proposed mandatory bargaining code allowing news publishers – collectively if they choose – to negotiate with Google and Facebook to receive payment for their content.

20 January 2021

The European Commission has followed up on its promise to protect gig workers by consulting on proposed exemptions from competition rules that would allow certain groups to form collective bargaining agreements.

06 January 2021

Spain’s competition enforcer has fined six stevedoring unions for imposing anticompetitive hiring requirements on port stowage companies, just three days after the European Court of Justice rejected its request for a preliminary ruling on the case.

21 September 2020

The European Court of Justice has dismissed the Spanish antitrust enforcer’s request for a preliminary ruling on the application of competition rules to collective bargaining agreements because the enforcer is not a “national court or tribunal”.

16 September 2020

Australia’s competition czar has said a threat by Facebook to block Australian publishers and people from sharing news on its social media platforms is “ill-timed and misconceived”.

01 September 2020

Global Competition Review has published a study looking into the extent of competitor collaboration during the covid-19 pandemic, which suggests that lawyers are wary of enforcement in a post-coronavirus world.

18 August 2020