A round-up of EU competition law developments, including the latest EUMR developments.

Competition analysis: The EU’s highest court has rejected Google’s latest appeal in the Google Shopping proceedings, upholding the European Commission’s findings of abuse of dominance and resulting €2.42bn fine. The Court of Justice re-affirmed the Commission’s decision that Google has violated Article 102 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) by engaging in ‘self-preferencing’ practices that favoured its own comparison shopping service on its general search engine results pages and demoted results from competing services. The judgment of 10 September 2024 confirms that self-preferencing practices can amount to a standalone abuse of dominance, strengthening the Commission’s discretion to incorporate novel theories of harm in this area, particularly in cases that concern access restrictions. It will likely embolden the Commission to consider new enforcement actions, with particular significance to firms that operate in the tech sector. Written by Ken Daly, partner, Monika Zdzieborska, senior managing associate, and Bethany Wise, managing associate, at Sidley Austin LLP.

This Practice Note provides an overview of Directive (EU) 2023/2225 on credit agreements for consumers (CCD II) which will repeal and replace the current Consumer Credit Directive, Directive 2008/48/EC (CCD I).  CCD II has been necessitated by rapid technological development in the consumer credit market and the emergence of new forms of consumer credit since CCD I was published in 2008. CCD II expands the scope of the existing regime, adapts information requirements to cater for digital devices, strengthens creditworthiness assessments, and introduces several other changes aimed at protecting consumers from exploitation that will significantly impact the EU’s consumer credit market. Date of application of CCD II The text of CCD II was published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) on 30 October 2023 and entered into force on 19 November 2023. EU Member States were required to adopt and publish the laws and regulations necessary to comply with CCD II by 20 November 2025 and must apply the provisions from 20 November 2026. The date of application is also the date on which

Introduction Directive (EU) 2024/1760 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 on corporate sustainability due diligence and amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937 and Regulation (EU) 2023/2859 (the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, abbreviated to CS3D or CSDDD) was published in the Official Journal on 5 July 2024. The CS3D forms part of the EU legislative framework on sustainable corporate governance, alongside the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (Directive (EU) 2022/2464, CSRD), and complements measures contained in the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/2088, EU SFDR) and EU Taxonomy Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2020/852). This package of legislation emerged from the European Green Deal policy roadmap of 2019 and is designed to contribute towards the EU’s goal to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The CS3D recognises that ‘the behaviour of companies across all sectors of the economy is the key to success with regard to the EU’s sustainability objectives as EU companies, especially large ones, rely on global value chains.’ The CS3D aims to: ‘…ensure that companies active in the internal

EU Law analysis: After some months of political wrangling, Member States finally adopted a significantly revised version of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive on 15 March 2024. The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee approved the text in a vote taken on 19 March 2024. The legislation will now face a final vote in the European Parliament in the April plenary session and a final formal vote of endorsement by the Council of the EU. Subject to passing these stages, the Directive is expected to be published in the Official Journal before the end of the Belgian Council presidency in June 2024. The adopted text has been significantly amended since provisional political agreement was originally reached in December 2023. This analysis looks at the key changes to the legislation.

Law360: Brussels—EU countries' negotiations on a proposal to streamline corporate taxation have been delayed because of a lack of clarity on implementation of the OECD's global minimum tax and the design of the accompanying reallocation of taxing rights, a top European Commission tax official said 5 June 2024.

The Council of the European Union has agreed its position on the Critical Medicines Act (CMA), a proposed regulation aimed at addressing shortages of critical medicines including antibiotics, insulin and painkillers across the EU. The Council's position introduces requirements for Commission guidance on EU production determination, facilitates information exchange on contingency stocks, reduces the minimum number of member states needed for collaborative procurement from nine to six, and mandates resilience criteria in public procurement. The legislation will now proceed to negotiations with the European Parliament following the Commission's original proposal published on 11 March 2025.

The Council of the European Union has approved updated tax cooperation and transparency agreements with Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco and San Marino. The updated agreements align with new international standards developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and expand the automatic exchange of financial account information to include electronic money products and digital currencies. The new protocols also establish a framework for cooperation on value-added tax recovery and the prevention of tax fraud and evasion, while strengthening due diligence and reporting requirements to help tax administrations act more effectively on shared information. The updated agreements are set to enter into force on 1 January 2026, and the EU has indicated that it intends to further deepen cooperation on tax matters with Switzerland.

Tax analysis: In SC Arcomet Towercranes SRL, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) found that transfer pricing adjustments can fall within the scope of VAT if there is a direct link between the services provided and the compensation received.

Restructuring & Insolvency analysis: Under Portuguese law, tax debts and social security debts were excluded from bankruptcy discharge. A Portuguese debtor argued that this was inconsistent with the EU harmonisation Directive, which stated that excluding a category of debt from insolvency discharge had to be ‘duly justified’. It was held that this was a prerequisite for the exclusion of any debt, but that it was for the national courts to determine whether sufficient justification was present. Further, it was held that it was not inherently inconsistent with the Directive for a Member State’s laws to prefer a public institutional creditor to private creditors, provided that the exclusion of the relevant debt was duly justified. Written by Nora Wannagat, barrister at 9 Stone Buildings.

Competition analysis: On 23 April 2024, the European Commission carried out its first dawn raid under the new EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation. The business targeted was Nuctech—a subsidiary of a Chinese owned company specialising in security inspection equipment, operating from both the Netherlands and Poland. During the raid, the Commission requested the content of a number of employees’ mailboxes whose data were stored on servers located in China. In late May 2024, Nuctech issued proceedings in the EU’s General Court, challenging the Commission’s decision to initiate the raid and requesting the investigation be suspended. Nuctech’s application was dismissed by the General Court on 12 August 2024. Written by Jonathan Branton, head of EU/Competition at the English law firm DWF and also leads the government and public sector group and Amanpreet Kaur, solicitor at DWF Law LLP.

This timeline tracks the key developments relating to an integrated covered bond framework being established in the EU. Glossary of defined terms This section sets out some defined terms used in this timeline. BRRD—Bank and Recovery Resolution Directive 2014/59/EU CBIC—Covered Bond Investor Council CMU—Capital Markets Union CRR—Capital Requirements Regulation (EU) 575/2013 EBA—European Banking Authority ECB—European Central Bank ECON—European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs ECSP—European Crowdfunding Service Providers ESNs—European Secured Notes EMIR—European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EU) 648/2012 ESRB—European Systemic Risk Board ICMA—International Capital Markets Association MiFID II—Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 2014/65/EU OTC—over-the-counter SSPE—securitisation special purposes entities STS securitisation—simple, transparent and standardised securitisation UCITS IV—Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferable Securities Directive 2009/65/EC Covered bond framework—key developments Date Issuing body Document Description 23 September 2025 EBA EBA advice on the review of the EU Covered Bond Framework—Response to the Commission’s call for advice of July 2023 The