Case involved a French TV network and German tour operator | EUIPO board of appeal found to have erred on several points concerning distinctiveness, visual similarity and consumer confusion.
French media company Groupe Canal+ increases MultiChoice stake to 15.4% biznews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from biznews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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The Court of Justice annulled the commitment decision of EU
Commission where the Authority accepted commitments from Paramount
Pictures and found that the Commission failed to properly consider
the pre-existing rights of a third party (Canal +) and this
amounted to a violation of the proportionality principle. The
proportionality principle, that regulates the exercise of powers by
the EU, is enshrined in the Treaty on European Union under Article
5. According to this article, the action of the EU must be limited
to what is necessary to achieve the purposes of the Treaties. The
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Settlements are a frequently used means of efficiently terminating proceedings, not only in cartel cases but also in other antitrust proceedings. The EU Commission can avoid having to spend resources on a time-consuming investigation and there are advantages for the companies concerned as well: In the administrative proceedings, they can propose remedies (commitments) themselves and – subject to the Commission s approval – avoid without much noise the finding of an infringement. The Broadcom case (AT.40608) is a recent example. However, there cannot always be a happy ending. In a seminal ruling (not yet available in English), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) overturned on December 9, 2020 a decision of the lower instance and declared a settlement between US film studio Paramount and the EU Commission null and void – with far-reaching implications not only for the parties to the dispute.