Summary of Key Developments — July/August 2026

The “European Antitrust Bimonthly Bulletin” distills the major antitrust developments in Europe over the past two months into concise and actionable takeaways. For any questions or suggestions, please contact Jindrich Kloub, Deirdre Carroll, or any other attorney in the European Antitrust Team listed at the end of the Bulletin.

Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery Receives EU and UK Clearance
Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery have now secured regulatory approvals from both the EU and UK authorities for their US$110.9 billion transaction. On July 22, 2026, the European Commission (EC) cleared the antitrust aspects of the transaction subject to commitments and the deal’s Gulf-state financing unconditionally; foreign-investment authorities in several EU member states have also granted their approvals. On August 6, 2026, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) followed suit and granted the deal unconditional clearance as the UK government decided not to intervene on public interest grounds, after Paramount gave binding undertakings over its UK broadcasting operations: continued funding for public-service programming, editorial independence for news, and keeping its television channels separate from its streaming services.

On the antitrust front, the EC’s concern centered on theatrical film distribution. Because Paramount and Universal already jointly distribute their films to cinema operators across parts of Europe through their United International Pictures joint venture, the transaction would bring the releases of three major studios under a single distributor. The EC found this would worsen the terms offered to cinemas, to the detriment of consumers. To resolve this concern, Paramount committed to exit the joint venture within 13 months of closing, which the EC said would ensure the merged group’s films “will not be distributed jointly with those of Universal or Disney.”

The CMA reviewed the same theatrical-distribution overlap, along with children’s pay-TV and streaming, and cleared the deal unconditionally. Since UK film distribution falls outside the scope of the Paramount/Universal joint venture, the concern that led Paramount to offer commitments to the EC did not arise in the UK. The CMA likewise concluded that the transaction would not substantially lessen competition, finding that Paramount and Warner Bros. faced significant competitive constraints from major rivals including Universal, Disney, and Sony. Although the merged entity would become the UK’s largest film distributor, the CMA noted that its combined market share of 20 to 30 percent would remain broadly comparable to those of Universal and Disney. On children’s channels and streaming, the agency likewise found sufficient competition would remain. The UK Cinema Association, a prominent critic of the deal, has indicated that it will not challenge the clearance.

European Agencies Actively Pursue Gun-Jumping Cases
In July 2026, three European competition authorities advanced investigations into businesses for failure to notify a transaction and/or implementing a transaction without clearance (referred to informally as “gun-jumping”).

On July 8, 2026, Denmark’s Competition and Consumer Authority found that Brødr. Ewers, a Danish wood-pellet supplier, breached its duty to notify and the prohibition on early implementation when it acquired rival supplier Hjaltelin in July 2025. The buyer alerted the authority after realizing the deal was notifiable, filing the transaction and securing unconditional clearance in early 2026. Notwithstanding the company’s subsequent compliance, the agency is still determining whether to impose a fine.

On July 3, 2026, Austria’s Federal Competition Authority applied to the Cartel Court to fine book publisher HarperCollins €550,000 (approximately US$635,000) over its acquisition of rival Gräfe und Unzer, a transaction announced in late 2024 and completed without the authority’s prior clearance. The buyer admitted the infringement and cooperated toward a settlement, and the fine still awaits the Cartel Court’s confirmation.

On July 10, 2026, the EC opened a formal investigation into the proposed acquisition by Austrian furniture retailer XXXLutz of German rival Porta. Although the deal has not yet been completed and has not been notified to the EC, the regulator’s preliminary view is that the transaction meets the thresholds for notification and that the parties may have taken steps to integrate the transaction in breach of the standstill obligation. The EC’s press release cites coordination of the parties’ operations, influence on the target’s day-to-day operations, and exchange of commercially sensitive information as examples of prohibited conduct, which indicate the potential scope of the investigation. Separate from any merger review, the probe could expose the parties to fines of up to 10 percent of worldwide turnover.

UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) Clears Danone/Huel Despite High Market Shares
On August 20, 2026, the CMA unconditionally cleared Danone’s £864 million (approximately US$1.17 billion) acquisition of British meal supplement maker Huel. The transaction was cleared at Phase I, despite the parties holding a combined 70 to 80 percent share in a narrowly defined ready-to-drink meal replacement market, a level that would ordinarily raise concerns. The CMA noted that Danone had no presence in the market until launching its own product, Alpro M2G, just months before the deal, making the increment to that share as a result of the merger minimal. Rather than rely on the static figure, the CMA focused on how the market was likely to develop, drawing on the parties’ internal documents and third-party views. It concluded that Danone’s Alpro M2G was unlikely to become a significant constraint on Huel, which would continue to face competition from a range of established rivals, planned new entrants, and, to some degree, protein drink suppliers, and that customer feedback, mostly neutral, did not point to any concern.

UK CMA Clears Pastry Deal Seven Weeks Early After Vandemoortele Concedes Competition Issue
On August 20, 2026, the CMA cleared Vandemoortele’s completed acquisition of Délifrance subject to Vandemoortele selling the overlapping UK laminated dough plant and sales operation it acquired through the deal, closing an in-depth Phase 2 investigation roughly seven weeks ahead of the 24-week statutory deadline.

After the parties failed to secure an approved buyer for the remedy package offered at Phase 1, the CMA referred the transaction to Phase 2 in April 2026. During the Phase 2 investigation, Vandemoortele conceded that the merger would substantially lessen competition in the UK frozen viennoiserie market, enabling the inquiry group to move straight to negotiating remedies and conclude the case nearly two months ahead of schedule.

Vandemoortele must now find a buyer for the divested UK assets. The company has said the process is ongoing and discussions with several interested parties are progressing.

EU Court’s Football Rulings Confirm Context-over-Form Approach to Antitrust Restrictions
On July 9 and July 16, 2026, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the EU’s highest court, handed down separate judgments confirming that restrictions imposed by a sports federation can still be justified under EU competition law even where they bind third parties, such as agents, who never joined the federation and have no vote in its rules. The ECJ clarified that, in line with its established case law (Wouters/Meca-Medina), this holds where such rules are not restrictions of competition “by object” (anticompetitive by their nature regardless of proven effects) but instead pursue a legitimate public-interest objective through appropriate, necessary, and proportionate means. The rulings concerned rules imposed by football associations on player agents (see here and here).

In the first case, ROGON v. DFB, German football agents challenged rules from the German Football Association (DFB) capping agents’ compensation on transfers and requiring the disclosure of payments made to agents. In the second, RRC Sports v. FIFA, a German agency challenged a broader set of FIFA rules covering fee caps, but also licensing requirements, limits on multiple representation and restrictions on how agents approach clients. The ECJ found most of the FIFA rules are not restrictions by object, with two exceptions: a provision letting incumbent agents renegotiate with a client at any time while barring rivals from approaching that client outside a two-month window, and another clawing back part of an agent’s fee after a later transfer. The ECJ found this appears incompatible with the cartel prohibition because it hands incumbents an unfair advantage over competing agents.

Both rulings confirm the ECJ’s longstanding approach to identifying anticompetitive restrictions, which focuses on context rather than form. Together with its Tondela ruling regarding a no-poach agreement among Portuguese football clubs (as discussed in our March/April edition), the July rulings bring to three the number of decisions this year in which the ECJ declined to treat restrictions that appear inherently anticompetitive (a no-poach clause, a compensation cap, a ban on multiple representation) as automatically unlawful, insisting instead on an assessment of their content, aims, and context.

EU Court Dismisses Google’s Appeal in Android Antitrust Case
On July 2, 2026, the European Court of Justice dismissed Google’s appeal in the Google Android case, confirming a €4.125 billion (approximately US$4.7 billion) fine. The proceedings stemmed from a 2018 EC decision finding that the objective of the Android licensing terms was to “protect and strengthen” Google’s position in general online search, in particular by conditioning Play Store licenses on the pre-installation of Google Search and Chrome and by restricting devices running non-approved versions of Android.

On Google’s earlier appeal, the General Court, in 2022, upheld most of the EC’s decision but set aside a separate finding on certain revenue-sharing agreements tied to the exclusive pre-installation of Google Search and reduced the fine the EC had originally imposed. The ECJ rejected all of Google’s grounds of appeal, leaving the General Court’s judgment and the revised €4.125 billion (approximately US$4.7 billion) fine intact.

UK Court of Appeal Upholds CMA’s Drug-Pricing Infringement Findings but Sends Penalties Back
On July 28, 2026, the UK Court of Appeal handed down its second judgment in the multi-year litigation arising from the CMA’s Hydrocortisone decision, and with it, all of the agency’s infringement findings have now survived appeal, leaving only the penalties in issue. In the 2021 decision, the agency imposed fines totaling £260 million (approximately US$350 million) for four infringements in the supply of hydrocortisone 10mg and 20mg tablets, finding in relation to each strength an abuse of dominance through excessive pricing and a separate pay-for-delay infringement.

The decision was challenged before the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), the specialist court that hears appeals from CMA decisions, with the CAT’s rulings in turn subject to appeal before the Court of Appeal. In this most recent judgment, the court considered the pricing abuse, rejecting the companies’ arguments that the CAT had applied the wrong legal test and approach and upholding the excessive-pricing finding, albeit finding that the CAT’s specific quasi-economic framework for assessing prices is not one which should be adopted in the future.

On the fines, however, the court allowed the companies’ appeals: it found the CAT had failed to engage with their arguments, asking only whether the CMA’s approach was defensible instead of conducting the full merits review the appeal required. By failing to provide any detailed reasons for its decision, the CAT had infringed the companies’ rights under Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and had relegated the court’s full merits jurisdiction to a hearing of the parties’ objections to the CMA’s decision and not the CAT’s findings.

EC Takes Two Sets of DMA Actions Concerning Google’s Search, Play, Android, and Search Data Practices
The EC brought two separate actions under the DMA, the EU’s rulebook regulating large online platforms, concerning Google in July 2026: one setting compliance terms going forward and one addressing past conduct.

On July 16, 2026, the EC issued two sets of binding “specification” measures, clarifying how DMA obligations should be implemented to ensure compliance. The first requires Google to give competing AI assistants access to Android features “on an equal footing” with Gemini, including letting users “activate their preferred AI assistant via voice commands, similar to the ‘Hey Google’ command,” all from July 2027 and subject to privacy, security, and device integrity safeguards. The second, which applies from January 2027, requires Google to “share the same data that it collects to optimise its own search services,” in anonymized form, with rival search engines and AI chatbots, subject to a “fair formula to calculate the price” of the data, a “transparent process for accessing the data,” and a screening mechanism that lets Google assess before sharing whether doing so “poses serious cybersecurity and data protection risks.”

Separately, on July 23, 2026, the EC issued two decisions finding failures to comply with the DMA. In the first, concerning Google Search, the EC found that “Google gives preferential treatment to its own services, including shopping, hotels, transport and sports results, over those of third parties in Google Search, thereby breaching its obligations under the DMA,” and imposed a €460 million (approximately US$524 million) fine. In the second, concerning Google Play, the EC imposed a €430 million (approximately US$490 million) fine, finding that developers were kept from “freely communicating and promoting offers and concluding contracts with users in distribution channels of their choice, including third-party app stores” and that “the level of the steering-related fees charged by Google and the length of the charging period for these fees went beyond what is considered compliant with the DMA.” Both decisions carry a 60-day compliance deadline and may be challenged before the EU courts.

EU Court Upholds Apple’s DMA Gatekeeper Designation for App Store and iOS
On July 8, 2026, the General Court dismissed Apple’s challenge to its designation as a “gatekeeper” under the DMA, leaving intact the EC’s 2023 decision subjecting Apple’s App Store and iOS operating system to the DMA’s conduct rules.

The court rejected Apple’s principal argument that its five app stores (for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, and Apple TV) are separate services, only one of which, the iOS App Store, crossed the DMA’s designation thresholds. It held that the stores together “constitute a single CPS” (core platform service, the DMA’s term for the gateway services it regulates), because “irrespective of the devices in question,” they share “the same purpose, namely to connect app developers with end users,” and that the distinctions Apple drew “relate primarily to the specific characteristics of the devices used” and “do not justify distinguishing between several core platform services.”

The court declined to rule on Apple’s separate challenge to the legality of the DMA’s interoperability obligations, holding that the point could not be raised in a case about designation because the interoperability provision was “neither the legal basis of the designation decision” nor “a rule having a direct legal connection with that decision.”

The court separately dismissed as inadmissible Apple’s challenge to the EC’s classification of iMessage as a core platform service, finding that the classification “does not, by itself, produce binding legal effects that bring about a change in Apple’s legal position.” It reasoned that “none of the obligations laid down by the DMA applies to iMessage” because the service “has not been listed in a designation decision as an important gateway,” and dismissed on the same reasons Apple’s actions against the decisions opening and closing the iMessage market investigation.

French Competition Authority Flags Gatekeeping Risks in AI Agents Sector
On July 17, 2026, France’s competition authority (AdlC) issued a report on competition in the agentic AI space, warning that AI agents are quickly becoming gateways to the wider digital economy. The report follows the AdlC’s January 2026 inquiry into AI agents.

The AdlC found that although barriers to enter the AI agent sector are lower than for building generative models, developers still struggle to scale, held back by the need to reach users and by hurdles such as data access, interoperability, and inference costs.

The opinion flags several competitive risks in the AI agents sector, such as equity investments and partnerships between major digital platforms and AI agent providers, self-preferencing in AI agents’ ranking or recommendations, developer reliance on third-party foundation models via API, creating dependency risks, automation of user tasks, resulting in data lock-in risks, and agentic commerce risks, including automated repeat purchases entrenching incumbents and potential algorithmic collusion.

More broadly, the opinion identifies the “platformization” of AI agents as a potential threat that could disintermediate publishers and e-commerce sites, since agents increasingly mediate user interactions directly.

The report ends with a recommendation for enforcement of the existing framework, including competition law, the AI Act, and the Digital Markets Act, closer scrutiny of investment ties between major digital companies and competing AI agent developers, and greater interoperability and open standards. It also recommends that the EC consider designating agent distribution channels, particularly MaaS platforms, as core platform services and ensure such platforms give AI developers fair and non-discriminatory access.

EU Court Rules That No Prior Court Approval Needed to Seize Business Emails in Dawn Raids
On July 16, 2026, the European Court of Justice ruled that EU law does not require national competition authorities to obtain prior court approval before seizing business emails during unannounced on-site inspections, while maintaining that independent prior review is required for material held on an employee’s private device.

The case arose from raids that Portugal’s competition authority conducted at the petitioners’ business premises. The businesses argued that the emails seized were protected as private communications under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and that a judge, not the public prosecutor, should have authorized the raids. In its judgment, the ECJ held that although business emails are protected by the EU Charter’s rights to privacy of communications and protection of personal data, those protections do not prevent national competition authorities from seizing them without prior court authorization. The Court clarified that the requirement under EU law is that the seizure is limited to material falling within the scope of the investigation and subject to adequate safeguards to prevent abuse, including the availability of effective judicial review after the seizure has taken place.

This ruling is the second in as many months in which the EU courts have been asked to determine the extent to which the public-interest objective of ensuring effective antitrust enforcement may outweigh privacy and data-protection rights. In a judgment delivered on June 3, 2026, concerning information requests issued by the EC, the General Court confirmed that the EC can require the production of business communications stored on individuals’ personal devices, as discussed in our last edition.

EU Court Declines to Suspend EC Request for Communications with In-House Counsel
On August 3, 2026, the General Court refused to suspend the EC’s demand that Broadcom and VMware hand over communications with their in-house lawyers. The documents were sought by the EC earlier this year as part of an investigation into whether Broadcom abused a dominant position in virtualization software, including through its VMware licensing terms.

In its bid to pause compliance with the request, Broadcom argued that the communications, privileged under U.S. but not EU rules, should be spared from production out of international comity, the principle that one jurisdiction should limit the reach of its own laws in deference to another’s.

The court rejected the argument and held that because EU rules do not extend privilege to in-house lawyers, protection under U.S. law could not shield the communications. On comity, the court emphasized that the principle is not binding and found it was in any event satisfied here, given the clear link between the conduct under investigation and the EU market. It added that Broadcom had not shown that production would waive privilege under U.S. rules, and that allowing a company to decide for itself what to withhold would seriously undermine the Commission’s powers of investigation.

Broadcom’s separate action to annul the EC’s request itself remains pending.

CMA Continues Drip Pricing Clampdown
On August 19, 2026, the UK CMA opened three further consumer protection investigations into Trainline, Virgin Atlantic, and RED Driving School over concerns that they failed to show customers the full price upfront when buying train and coach tickets, package holidays, and driving lessons online. The cases concern so-called drip pricing, where mandatory charges are excluded from the headline price and added later in the purchase process, leaving customers to work out the true cost. All three businesses had already been put on notice through advisory letters during the online-pricing enforcement drive covered in our November/December 2025 edition, and the CMA says continued monitoring left it concerned enough to escalate. No findings have been made, but if the CMA finds an infringement under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) it can order compensation and fine companies up to 10 percent of global turnover.

The investigations confirm drip pricing as a settled CMA priority, bringing to eight the number of drip pricing investigations the CMA has opened since gaining direct consumer enforcement powers in April 2025. For more on the CMA’s drip pricing enforcement, see our alerts here and here.