Recent developments in Swiss competition law

I. Introduction

1. 1. The Competition Commission’s¹ decisions on the distribution in Switzerland of francophone books² did not satisfy nine of the parties to the investigation; they all appealed to the Federal Administrative Tribunal, which handed down its judgments at the end of October 2019.³ Numerous lessons may be drawn from these judgments. In particular:
   • European competition law remains a great source of inspiration for Swiss authorities. For instance, the court pointed out that the differences between the regimes governing agreements are “in great part only apparent.”⁴
   • In competition law, a group constitutes one sole undertaking.⁵ Among other things, this implies that legal entities belonging to the same group may not enter into agreements from a competition law standpoint (so-called “group privilege”).⁶
   • In case of an absolute territorial protection, both direct and indirect exclusions of pass…