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Bill Batchelor

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Bill Batchelor is a member of Baker McKenzie’s European & Competition Law Practice in Brussels. He has been described as “…a sensible lawyer who gives sound and to-the-point advice” by Chambers Europe 2009. Prior to joining the Firm, Mr. Batchelor worked for the DG for Competition of the European Commission, and spent six months with the UK Office of Fair Trading as part of the team that established the 1998 UK Competition Act. He has worked in the Firm’s Washington DC, London and Brussels offices. Mr. Batchelor has contributed to Butterworths Competition Law, Cartels Chapter, and Sweet & Maxwell’s IT Encyclopaedia, Competition Law Chapter.

From bidets to ballcocks, bathroom online sales are booming. A third of canny customers fitting out a new bathroom want cheap online deals. But what about the showrooms and sales staff that help customers touch and feel their dream bathroom? Can this retailer pressure cause you to violate the law?

A Russian appeal court has upheld Teva’s obligation to supply Copaxone to its distributor to compete against it at tender. The case endorses the Russian competition authority’s tendency to define markets narrowly – and thus to find a supplier has a monopoly of this narrowly defined market – so as to force supply by “dominant” companies in circumstances that may make little economic sense.

The first Post Danmark case in 2012 brought about a modest antitrust revolution on Article 102 applicable to discrimination. Rarefied economic concepts were confirmed. Price discrimination as a standalone abuse was all but confined to a historical footnote in antitrust textbooks, to be replaced by a predation type test.

The European Commission’s Digital Single Market (“DSM”) agenda was launched on May 6, 2015 combining a wide ranging antitrust inquiry with a series of legislative initiatives designed to shake up online businesses across Europe, and globally. A mixed bag of free trade… Some of the initiatives play to the strengths…