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María Micolau Martí

María Micolau Martí is an associate in Covington’s competition team. She advices on various aspects of EU competition law, including multijurisdictional merger control, cartels, antitrust and regulatory investigations.

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On 2 June 2025, the European Commission (“Commission”) fined the food delivery companies Delivery Hero and Glovo EUR 329 million for engaging into cartel conduct through agreeing not to poach each other’s employees, exchanging competitively sensitive information, and allocating geographic markets.

The decision signals increased antitrust scrutiny of labour-related arrangements between rivals  and underscores the need for companies to implement safeguards when holding non-controlling minority interests in competing businesses. For the time being, the Commission has only issued a press release and a statement; it will release a public version of its decision in the coming months.

Key takeaways

  • A first in two respects. This marks the Commission’s first cartel decision targeting labour-related practices (specifically in relation to a no-poach agreement), and the first time it has enforced concerns about holding a minority stake in a competitor.
  • Tighter enforcement in labour markets. The decision confirms the Commission’s known hard stance towards no-poach agreements between competitors, in line with the increased antitrust scrutiny of these and comparable arrangements in the EU Member States and elsewhere.
  • Minority shareholdings as a vector for collusion. The Commission’s decision underlines the collusive risk that may arise from owning a minority stake in rival companies. Minority shareholdings in a competitor may grant access to competitively sensitive information, enabling alignment of commercial strategies between the parties. As such, minority shareholders must ensure their rights are used only to protect the value of their investment and should implement safeguards to prevent access to competitively sensitive information.  

Background

Delivery Hero and Glovo are two large food delivery companies active in Europe. In July 2018, Delivery Hero acquired a non-controlling minority stake in Glovo and, during the following years, progressively increased its stake through subsequent share acquisitions until it acquired sole control of Glovo in July 2022.

The Commission’s investigation was triggered by information received from a national competition authority (likely the Spanish competition authority which reviewed Delivery Hero’s acquisition of Glovo in 2022) and an anonymous whistleblower.

The conduct

The Commission found that, from July 2018 until July 2022, Delivery Hero and Glovo engaged in the following multi-layered conduct:Continue Reading European Commission issues first no-poach decision in labour markets, warning against the collusive risks of minority shareholdings

What are the key take-aways of the mission letter to Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, EVP-designate responsible for EU competition policy?

On 17 September 2024, European Commission (“Commission”) President Ursula von der Leyen (“President”), announced her proposed College of Commissioners (“College”) for her second 5-year term. The Commissioners-designate still need to be confirmed by the European Parliament (“EP”).

Of particularly interest from a competition policy perspective is the President’s mission letter (“Mission Letter”) to Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, the designated Executive Vice-President (“EVP-designate”) for a “Clean, Just and Competitive Transition”. The Mission Letter sets out the priorities and action plans of the European Commission for the next 5 years.

In this blogpost, we introduce EVP-designate Ribera and the tasks which the President has set for her, specifically on competition policy. 

About EVP-designate Ribera

Like many of her colleague Commissioners, past and present, EVP-designate Riberahas held several national ministerial posts: she has been serving as Spain’s Minister for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge since 2018 and has had two consecutive terms as Vice-President of the Spanish Government since 2020. She has also been serving as a member of the Spanish Parliament since 2019.

A lawyer by training, EVP-designate Riberahas also held high-level private and public posts focusing on sustainable development and climate change. She served as Spain’s State Secretary for Climate Change (2008-2011) and as director of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (2014-2018) – likely suitable experience given indications in her Mission Letter that these topics will only gain in relevance, both for the Commission and its competition portfolio.Continue Reading New Commissioner, New Mission, New Policy for Competition?

The European Court of Justice released its long-awaited judgment1 in the Google Shopping saga last week, finally putting to bed close to fifteen years’ of scrutiny into Google’s practices of favouring its own comparison shopping service (Google Shopping) over rival shopping services.

In its ruling, the ECJ upheld the General Court’s earlier judgment2 which had rejected Google’s appeal over the European Commission’s decision3 to fine it €2.42 billion for abusing its market dominance as a search engine by systematically favouring Google Shopping in its general search results.

The overall outcome of the ECJ’s reasoning in Google Shopping is perhaps unsurprising to competition law practitioners – given the unwavering direction of travel of the case. The ECJ judgment nevertheless raises a number of interesting points and leaves a number of questions unanswered.

Key takeaways

  • Refusal to supply. The judgment confirmed that not every issue of access necessarily requires the application of the Bronner test of refusal to supply. The ECJ found the Bronner doctrine applies in circumstances where a dominant firm refuses to grant a competitor access to infrastructure which it has developed for its own business needs. However, the ECJ ruled that the Bronner test is not applicable in cases where there is no outright refusal of access to infrastructure – but rather access granted on discriminatory terms (such discrimination being assessed under separate forms of potential abuse).
  • Competition not on the merits. The ECJ accepted Google’s arguments that, to establish an abuse of dominance under Article 102, a two-pronged test applies: (i) that actual or potential anticompetitive effects arise from the abusive conduct; and (ii) that the conduct falls outside of “competition on the merits”. However, in assessing the latter requirement, the ECJ rejected Google’s arguments that only circumstances relating specifically to Google’s conduct are relevant to the assessment. Instead, the ECJ held that, in assessing “competition on the merits”, relevant circumstances regarding the characteristics of the market or the nature of competition are capable of characterising the conduct as falling outside of the scope of competition on the merits.
  • Causality and counterfactual. The ECJ maintained that the causal link is one of the essential elements of a competition law infringement and that, as a result, the burden of proof for such causal link (and hence the counterfactual analysis) lies with the Commission. However, the ECJ found that the counterfactual analysis is just one way to establish causality. Where establishing a credible counterfactual may be “arbitrary or even impossible” (para 231), the Commission cannot be required to systematically establish a counterfactual and can rely on other evidence to establish causality.
  • “As-efficient competitors”. The ECJ reiterated earlier case law that it is not the objective of Article 102 to ensure that less efficient competitors remain on the market but also remarked that this statement did not imply that an abuse of dominance finding does not always require a showing that the conduct was capable of excluding an as-efficient competitor. With respect to the AEC test, the Court held that this is just one way to establish an abuse of dominance.

Continue Reading ECJ’s Google Shopping Judgment: The End of a Long Saga