The news release, posted yesterday on the Commission’s website, mentioned concerns that the inspected company may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit abuses of a dominant market position.
Other details were not provided, including the identity of the company and the location or country of the inspection.
The news release added: “Unannounced inspections are a preliminary investigative step into suspected anticompetitive practices. The fact that the Commission carries out such inspections does not mean that the company in question is guilty of anti-competitive behavior, nor does it prejudge the outcome of the investigation itself.”
Antitrust regulation enforcement has increased in both the EU and the U.S. in recent years. In 2020, the Commission kicked off a comprehensive review of EU antitrust, merger and state aid rules that resulted in a number of initiatives to strengthen antitrust regulations.
One of the more notable recent antitrust cases in the European Union involved the DNA sequencing and array-based tech developer Illumina. The European Commission fined the company approximately $478.9 million (€432 million) for completing its merger with cancer test maker Grail in August 2021 — before the Commission had weighed in on whether the deal was anti-competitive. Within weeks of the deal closing, the European Commission deemed that it was anti-competitive. The company continues to face scrutiny in the United States.
