by Alejandro Guerrero and David Wood

On 25 March 2021, the Court of Justice of the EU (“CJEU”) confirmed the fines imposed in Europe on a number of pharmaceutical companies, including Xellia and Alpharma, for entering into anticompetitive ‘pay for delay’ settlement agreements. 

One of the grounds of appeal rejected by the CJEU concerned the impact of the lengthy administrative procedure on Xellia’s and Alpharma’s rights of defence.  The CJEU found that Xellia and Alpharma had not proven that the Commission’s investigatory steps had taken so long as to impact their rights of defence.  In particular, Xellia and Alpharma could not blame the Commission for their own failure to preserve documents that could have assisted their defence. Continue reading →