After five years at the helm of the European Commission's Directorate General for Competition, Neelie Kroes spent 2009 bringing several long-running cases to a close before departing from DG Comp. In particular, the commission dropped a four-year abuse of dominance investigation of chipmaker Qualcomm, after the complainants all withdrew their objections. Later in the year, DG Comp settled another dominance case against Rambus, accepting commitments from the memory chipmaker in relation to standard setting and royalty rates. "There was an element of winding down towards the end of the year," says a Brussels-based antitrust partner, "but the commission did as solid a job as always." Indeed, commentators agree that the commission continues to rank among the most sophisticated competition enforcers in the world.