Brussels 'broke law' over merger
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The European Commission is told to compensate a firm whose takeover it was found to have wrongly blocked.
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BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Commission said Wednesday it had dropped its antitrust investigation into mobile phone roaming prices charged by operators in Britain and Germany after new EU rules forcing telecom companies to cut the cost of using mobile phones abroad.
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Unilever UNc.AS violated   corporate governance rules when it said in 2004 it would   convert some preference shares into common shares, Dutch   shareholder activist group VEB has concluded from an   investigation commissioned by the enterprise chamber of the   Amsterdam court.
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Brussels on Wednesday tightened the screws on European Union governments that have broken the bloc&#39;s common rules, in a drive to prise open national markets for companies in the gambling, telecommunications and financial services sectors, and the legal profession.
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Following firm's complaint that French law was anti-European The company whose chief executives were arrested in France last week had already filed a formal complaint to the European Commission claiming that France's gambling laws conflicted with the EC Treaty.â¦
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Business & money: Blow for RBS-led consortium as Dutch court rules ABN Amro acted lawfully when it agreed to sell LaSalle to Bank of America without shareholder approval.
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The transfer of confidential banking records by a Belgium-based company to U.S. authorities for use in anti-terrorism investigations breached Belgian and likely European Union data privacy rules, top government ...Comment
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The European Union&#39;s top competition watchdog on Wednesday blocked Ryanair&#39;s takeover of Irish airline Aer Lingus, a move the low-cost carrier has already vowed to appeal.
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LONDON, November 29  - The board of the Franco-Belgian Bank, Dexia (DXB.ETR), has rejected the companyâs proposed â¬37 billion merger with Italyâs Sanpaolo (PAO), following increasing opposition to the proposal by a group of its key
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The European Union has reversed a plan that would have required Britain and Ireland to phase out imperial measurements in favor of the metric system.
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(InfoWorld) - With the support of German lawmakers, incumbent telecommunications operator Deutsche TelekomÂ is racing into a head-on clash with the European Commission over a decision to keep rival operators off its new high-speed broadband network. The upper house of the German parliament approved a revised telecommunications law on Friday. The law will allow partially state-owned Deutsche Telekom to ban competitors from using its VDSL (Very high bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line) network to sell services. The decision flies in the face of Commission legislation that mandates member states to force telecommunications companies with dominant positions -- in most cases former state-owned monopolies -- into opening their network infrastructure to rival operators on favorable terms. While Deutsche Telekom eventually opened its local-loop infrastructure under pressure from Brussels, the operator has fought attempts to allow competition on its new network. It argues that the VDSL network represents a new market for combined triple-play telephony, high-speed Internet and TV services, and new markets are protected under European Union law; in addition, it needs to protect its â¬3 billion ($3.9 billion) investment in the super high-speed network. German lawmakers have become slightly sympathetic to Deutsche Telekom, which has been bleeding fixed-line customers by the millions and consequentlyÂ forced to lower operating costs, largely through job cuts. Since its privatization, the operator has reduced its workforce from more than 250,000 at the peak to around 180,000 today. Over the years, Deutsche Telekom and the German government have clashed with Brussels on issues including the divestment of the operator's cable TV network and local-loop unbundling. In repeated warnings over the past several months, the Commission has said it will take whatever action is necessary to make Germany observe E.U. law. The issue could land in the European Court of Justice, which is responsible for handling E.U. treaty infringements. Court decisions can take years, however. Rival fixed-line operators, including ArcorÂ & Co., which is owned by the Vodafone Group, have made it clear they don't want the former monopoly telephone operator to be given any advantages to dominate another market as it has with the market for telephone service.
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The French president is persuaded not to try to dilute EU competition law through the new EU treaty, the BBC learns.
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Competition boss who filed charges rejected a settlement offer so EU could maintain oversight.
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The EU Commission on Wednesday dragged Berlin to court over a law that shields carmaking icon Volkswagen from hostile takeovers, the culmination of a long campaign to break down barriers to foreign investment.
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Business & money: European commission finds O2 owner guilty of squeezing rivals out of Spanish broadband market.
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The European Commission was wrong to block the proposed $120 billion merger four years ago between MCI WorldCom and Sprint, a European court ruled today.
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Europe's betting industry says a German law banning online gambling breaks European Union law.