On 18 August 2022, the Federal Government released for consultation the Treasury Laws Amendment (Competition and Consumer Reforms No. 1) Bill 2022: More competition, better prices. The exposure draft legislation seeks to significantly increase the maximum penalty per contravention to AUD 50+ million for corporations engaging in anti-competitive conduct (including, for example, cartel offences, misuse of market power, and exclusive dealing) under Part IV of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 as well as for contraventions of the Australian Consumer Law. Penalties for breach of competition and consumer laws in Australia have increased rapidly in recent years, particularly in the context of consumer law contraventions, which will have seen an almost 50 times increase in the maximum penalty per contravention over a five year period (if the draft legislation is passed).
In an article published for ELA briefing, Jon Tuck and Richard Cook discuss the latest Employment Appeal Tribunal decision considering the unlawful inducement relating to collective bargaining under section 145B of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
The Annual Compliance Conference begins next week and attracts over 6,000 in-house senior legal and compliance professionals from across the world. This leading compliance conference will be held across five weeks from 6 September – 6 October 2022. We will be virtually delivering our cutting-edge insights and guidance on key global compliance, investigations and ethics issues. Our global experts will provide practical insights and analysis on significant developments:
• anti-bribery
• corruption and economic crime
• customs and FTAs
• ESG, supply chain and product compliance
• antitrust and competition
• export controls, sanctions and foreign investment
Click here to view the full agenda and register your interest in joining us virtually at this must attend global compliance conference for senior in-house legal and compliance professionals.
With Law No. 108 of 5 August 2022 (converting Decree-Law No. 68 of 16 June 2022 into law, with amendments), the Italian government introduced a favorable regime for authorized car distributors that will have a major impact on the sector. The new legislation applies to all vertical relationships between the manufacturer or importer of vehicles and the authorized distributor for the sale of vehicles that have not yet been registered, as well as vehicles that have been registered by the authorized distributors for not more than six months and have not traveled more than 6,000 kilometers.
The Government has begun the process of “re-doing” the Law No. 11 of 2020 on Job Creation as was mandated by the Constitutional Court on 25 November 2021. It has issued an amendment to the law governing the legislative process to accommodate the omnibus law method used for this law. The Government must now involve the public in a meaningful way in discussing the substance of the law that will replace Law No. 11 of 2020, while still completing the whole process by the 25 November 2023 deadline. In the meantime, the amendment itself is still subject to constitutional challenges.
Baker McKenzie’s Sanctions Blog published the alert titled European Union: Amended temporary state aid crisis framework (Ukraine) regarding renewable energy and decarbonization on 2 August 2022. Read the article via the link here. Please also visit our Sanctions Blog for the most recent updates.
In this regional update, Baker McKenzie partners provide you with a practical overview of the most notable antitrust legal developments of quarter 2 in 2022 that may affect your business.
Please join us for a weekly series, hosted by Baker McKenzie’s North America Government Enforcement partners Tom Firestone and Jerome Tomas.
This week’s discussion will cover the following;
• our white collar thoughts on this week’s “Economist” article on ESG
• the SEC breaks new ground in insider trading case involving crypto assets
• the DOJ remains vigilant in promoting competition in the labor markets through several recent enforcement efforts
On 9 July 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order announcing his administration’s commitment to increasing vigorous antitrust enforcement. At the one-year anniversary of the EO, a recent flurry of enforcement efforts signals that the Department of Justice remains vigilant in carrying out the EO’s initiatives, especially in the labor markets.
In one of its latest decisions, the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce recognized that the implementation of compliance programs in competition matters might be considered a mitigation factor in the graduation of an eventual sanction. Recently, the SIC has pronounced the importance of these programs, imposing them as behavioral remedies in merger control procedures, as well as in decisions regarding anti-competitive practices. Specifically, in Resolution 22645 of 2022, the SIC imposed remedies to the transaction between two companies, imposing as a behavioral obligation within the companies the implementation of an Antitrust compliance program.