INTRODUCTION Contributed by: Franz Hoffet, Homburger
threshold transactions. The European Court of Jus - tice’s (CJEU) ruling in Towercast v Mediaset (Case C-449/21, March 2023) confirmed that a concentra - tion falling below the EU Merger Regulation’s (EUMR) notification thresholds can still be reviewed under Arti - cle 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the Euro - pean Union (TFEU) by a national competition authority where the acquirer is dominant. The Commission’s own attempt to extend its reach through the referral mechanism of Article 22 of the EUMR was rejected by the courts. In Illumina/GRAIL ( Illumina Inc. and Grail LLC v European Commission ; Joined Cases C‑611/22 P and C‑625/22 P), the CJEU ruled in 2024 that Article 22 referrals require the trans - action to be notifiable in the referring member state. The Commission intends to address the impact of the decision in its pending amendment of the EUMR. Another question concerns non-controlling minority shareholdings. In December 2025, the European Com - mission published its decision approving the acquisi - tion of Just Eat takeaway by Prosus N.V., subject to several commitments. One commitment concerned the divestment of Prosus’ minority interest in one of Just Eat’s main competitors, Delivery Hero. The Euro - pean Commission held that with its 27% stake Pro - sus was able to influence the competitive strategy of Delivery Hero. Further, the European Commission held that the structural link between Just Eat and Delivery Hero reduced their incentive to compete. Asia-Pacific: China Sets the Pace China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), comprehensively revised in August 2022, has established the country as one of the world’s most active antitrust enforcement environments. The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has demonstrated both the will - ingness and the capacity to pursue major cases. The SAMR fined Alibaba with CNY18.2 billion and Meituan with CNY3.44 billion. Both cases focused on abuses of dominance in digital platform markets. China’s merger control has also become a critical variable in cross-border transactions. The SAMR’s review of the proposed Synopsys/Ansys combination in 2024–2025 exemplifies a pattern in which Chinese
clearance has become the critical path for transac - tions with limited direct nexus to Chinese markets. Elsewhere in the region, Japan’s Mobile Software Competition Act brought Google and Apple under monitoring obligations. In South Korea, the Korea Fair Trade Commission’s (KFTC) fine against Google for anti-competitive conduct in the Android market is proceeding through the appellate courts. In Australia, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commis - sion’s (ACCC) recommendations for mandatory plat - form codes of conduct are under active legislative consideration. Labour Markets: A New Enforcement Area Antitrust enforcement in labour markets has gained substantial momentum globally, reflecting a broader recognition that competition law applies not only to product and service markets but to the markets in which workers are employed. No-poach agreements – arrangements between competing employers not to hire or solicit each other’s staff – and wage-fixing agreements are now treated as presumptively anti- competitive in a growing number of jurisdictions. In the United States, the DOJ’s early criminal pros - ecutions of no-poach agreements ended in acquittals. In April 2025, however, a home health executive was convicted by a Federal Jury for fixing nurses’ wages. In Europe, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has been among the most active enforcers. The European Commission has signalled that no-poach clauses in non-M&A contexts attract the full rigour of EU competition law. Private Damages and the Increasing Role of Litigation Funding Private antitrust litigation has matured into a major feature of the landscape in its own right, particularly in Europe. The wave of follow-on damages claims arising from the European truck manufacturers’ car - tel – in which MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler, Iveco, and DAF were found to have operated a price-fixing cartel for 14 years – continues to generate signifi - cant jurisprudence on the passing-on defence, over - charge quantification, and limitation periods across Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, and Portugal. In
6 A NTITRUST LI T IGATI O N 2026
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