European Union News - Internal Market

The Implementing Rules for Pilot Licensing consultation deadline has been extended until 15 December.

On September 22nd, the Official Journal of the European Union published the information related to the prior notification of a proposed concentration pursuant  to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 between the undertakings Deutsche Bank and The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. and Beheer- en Beleggingsmaatschappij Befraco BV.

The European Commission has decided to pursue infringement procedures against 12 Member States for failure to implement certain Internal Market Directives into national law. Under the Treaties, the Commission is responsible for ensuring that EU law is correctly applied, and consequently, it has powers of its own (action for non-compliance) to try to bring the infringement to an end and, where necessary, may refer the case to the European Court of Justice.

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the regulatory principles to be applied by EU Member States to Next Generation Access broadband networks (NGA). The objective of a common regulatory framework for NGA is to foster a consistent treatment of operators in the EU and thereby ensure the necessary regulatory predictability to invest. The public consultation will be open until November 14th 2008.

The new list of CPV Codes which classifies the Calls for Tenders published by the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, entered into force on September 17th, 2008. All the Calls for Tenders published in the S Series of the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) are already available in Euroalert.net adapted to this new codification.

European Court of Justice (ECJ) has established rules on the supply quotas for pharmaceuticals on the Greek wholesale market (Joined Cases C-468/06, C-469/06, C-470/06, C-471/06, C-472/06, C-473/06, C-474/06, C-475/06, C-476/06, C-477/06, C-478/06 Sot. Lélos kai Sia). The ECJ decided that a dominant company's refusal to supply wholesalers with a view to impeding parallel trade constitutes an abuse of a dominant market position under Article 82 of the EC Treaty unless it is justified by objective reasons.

The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of the UK bank Alliance & Leicester by the Spanish bank Banco Santander. After examination, the Commission concluded that the proposed operation would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or in a substantial part of it

The new CPV codes describing the Calls for Tenders published by the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities will start working on September 17, 2008.

It has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union the Commission Decision of 14 December 2004 amending Commission Decision 2002/610/EC on the aid scheme which France is planning to implement for the start-up of new short sea shipping services.

The European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) have encouraged the European Payments Council (EPC) to move ahead with the launch of the SEPA Direct Debit scheme. Under this scheme, bank customers would be able to arrange direct debits to pay companies with bank accounts in any of the 31 European countries participating in SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area).

The Official Journal of the European Union has published the authorisation for State aid for UK and Belgium in the cases of Vauxhall Motors Ltd and Volvo Cars in Gent.

The European Commission cleared on June 20th the proposed merger between Kenwood Corporation of Japan and Victor Company of Japan (“JVC”), both providers of electronics equipment. After examining the operation, the Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.