UK Financial Investments, the company which manages the UK government’s shareholdings in financial institutions affected by the 2008 financial crisis, announced today that it is selling its holding in Northern Rock to Virgin Money for £747 million.

“This is a concept that is new, unnecessary and a source of serious legal issues. The current situation is plainly incompatible with the new legal order,” said Eric Morgan de Rivery of Jones Day at GCR’s Law Leaders Conference in Brussels today. Gareth Corfield in Brussels

Fewer and lower fines from DG Comp, record numbers of cases appearing in the courts, and a reversed burden of proof in some cartel cases: three highlights from Tony Reeves’ snapshot of EU competition law developments over the past year. Gareth Corfield in Brussels.

The European Commission has launched a Phase II investigation of the acquisition of ED&F Man by Südzucker over concerns the deal could lead to an increase in sugar prices.

European competition authorities will adopt a set of best practices to cooperate on merger control cases across different member states.

The European Commission has opened a preliminary investigation of Samsung and Apple’s continuing patent disputes.

The European Commission today opened a Phase II investigation of the US$21 billion merger between Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and rival Synthes.

The European Commission today sent a statement of objections to Telefónica and Portugal Telecom (PT) over an agreement not to compete in the Spanish and Portuguese markets.

The European Commission is investigating whether Portugal’s privatisation of state-owned bank Banco Português de Negócios (BPN) breaches EU state aid rules.

DG Comp this week gave unconditional clearance to a €580 million merger between Caterpillar and MWM Holding following a Phase II investigation.

The European Commission is examining the competition implications of standardising how payments are made over the internet.

IBM has offered concessions to the European Commission in response to its concerns that the technology multinational abused its dominant position in the computer mainframe maintenance market.

European competition specialists are divided over how and whether to implement an EU-wide collective redress system. David Vascott in Florence.

The European Court of Justice has shot down an antitrust fine against Dutch brewer Grolsch. The penalty was levied against the company for allegedly colluding to fix the price of beer in the Netherlands.

Antitrust law observers on Wednesday questioned whether trustbusters were too quick to accept information gathered from leniency applications as fact when building cases against alleged cartelists. Ron Knox in New York