Client updates /  Monopolies

The Israel Competition Authority (ICA) published a draft consent decree with Bristol-Myers Squibb and Neopharm, requiring payments of over ILS 44 million by the companies and ILS 200,000 by a Neopharm executive, following indications of monopolistic abuse.

The high fine spares Meta an official determination by the Israel Competition Authority that it violated competition law by failing to report mergers, and serves as a “warning sign” to other international corporations that may not be sufficiently familiar with the obligation pursuant to Israeli law to report a merger if the company fulfills the monopoly criterion.

The regulations grant several new rights to the relevant data subjects, when the database contains information transferred from the European Economic Area (EEA) to Israel, including the data subject’s right to delete information and a broader right of review.

The Israeli Competition Director General fined MBI and company officers after they spiked the price of a life-saving drug called Leadiant by hundreds of percentage points.

Israeli district courts have already recognized the possibility of suing a monopoly for charging an unfair excessive price, but the Israeli Supreme Court’s recognition of this cause of action ends defendants’ potential arguments for opposing this very possibility.