Antitrust
Our expertise
Competition law is a key challenge for companies as it has a major impact on their operations:
- Heightened powers of competition authorities (investigative power, injunctions, interim measures, etc.);
- Increasingly high fines for breach;
- Implementation of negotiated or alternative solutions to standard sanctions proceedings (leniency, settlement, commitments) requiring sharp strategic analysis of the issues at stake;
- Simplifying and multiplying private enforcement action in response to the drive by EU law.
Competition rules on cartels or abuse of dominant position and how they connect with other issues (regulatory, intellectual property, etc.) make the task of evaluating the anticompetitive and consequently sanctionable nature of practices considered by companies or behaviour already in place on the given market very sensitive. Similarly, litigation brought before the competition authorities is strategic in view of the financial and reputational stakes at play.
Magenta helps companies with all issues involving competition law and provides bespoke support via the following services:
- Analysing the legality of some commercial practices implemented or considered in the development of clients’ operations or carried out by some competitors.
- Assisting with competition investigations and litigation as claimant or defendant brought before the competition authorities and/or European or national courts.
- Setting up compliance programmes, training legal and commercial teams, conducting audits and simulating dawn raids.
Our work
State Aid
State aid issues may arise in various situations: sector-specific emergency plans, implementation of safeguarding measures targeting one or more companies or financing services of general economic interest, financing R&D projects or infrastructure development projects using public funds or via any preferential tax mechanisms granted to them.
Companies must pay very careful attention to the mechanisms available to them to directly or indirectly benefit from public funds to avoid being required to reimburse them if they prove to constitute unlawful state aid.
In contrast, companies that contribute to such measures or are harmed competitively by the mechanism implemented may have an interest in challenging them (including to obtain reimbursement of the contributions charged to them).
Magenta has a comprehensive understanding of these rules and assists clients to make sure that the mechanisms granted to them do not risk being classed as state aid or, on the contrary, if they wish to challenge the legality of a mechanism they consider unlawful.
Our work
Private enforcement
Magenta is particularly active in private enforcement and helps clients as claimant or defendant with this type of litigation, supported by economic consulting firms.
Our work
Our rankings
