Competition weekly highlights—17 July 2025
This week's edition of Competition weekly highlights includes, from a UK perspective: (1) the UK government’s decision to launch a consultation on further changes to the draft Enterprise Act 2002 (Mergers Involving Newspaper Enterprises and Foreign Powers) (No 2) Regulations, (2) publication by the UK government of (i) the Subsidy Control (Subsidies and Schemes of Interest or Particular Interest) (Amendment) Regulations 2025 and (ii) a direction disapplying the SCA 2022 to the Clean Energy Car Grant Scheme, (3) publication by the CMA’s of its Annual Report for 2024 to 2025, and (4) the Court of Appeal’s judgment dismissing Phones4U’s appeal regarding allegations of collusion against EE, Vodafone and O2. This week's highlights also includes, from an EU perspective: (1) an AG opinion concerning a national reference from Bulgaria in an essential facilities case involving LUKOIL Bulgaria, (2) the Commission’s decision to launch a consultation regarding revision of EU procedures for the application of EU antitrust enforcement framework, (3) the Commission’s decision to issue its first opinion on the compatibility of a sustainability agreement in the French wine sector with competition rules for agriculture, (4) the Commission’s decision to send Italy a preliminary assessment under Article 21 of the EUMR regarding conditions imposed on the acquisition of BPM by UniCredit, (5) the Commission’s decision to launch a consultation on review of the State aid General Block Exemption Regulation, and (6) publication by the Commission of an external report setting out the results of market study on competition in online payments sector in the EEA.