Week Ahead (8 December)

Wednesday, 10 December – General Court to issue ruling in Intel’s challenge to re-imposed €376m EU antitrust fine 

On Wednesday, the EU’s General Court will deliver its judgement in T-1129/23 Intel v Commission, a key ruling in a 15-year legal saga over whether Intel abused its dominance in the market for x86 computer chips. The decision will determine whether the Commission’s €376.36 million fine, re-imposed in 2023 after an earlier annulment, can stand. 

The fine relates to Intel’s practices between 2002 and 2006, which Brussels said aimed to marginalise rival AMD through a mix of loyalty rebates and “naked restrictions” imposed on major PC manufacturers. The original €1.06 billion fine from 2009 — then a record — was partially annulled by the General Court in 2022 due to shortcomings in the Commission’s economic analysis, prompting regulators to conduct a new assessment limited to the elements the court had upheld. 

Intel filed a fresh action in December 2023 seeking to annul the new fine. He further argued that the Commission failed to remedy the evidentiary gaps previously identified and continued to breach procedural and substantive rights. 

During the hearing last May, Intel’s counsel Daniel Beard urged the court to recognise that the upheld elements of the case concerned only narrow, tactical interactions with HP, Acer and Lenovo, not a market-wide foreclosure strategy. He further argued that the Commission had imposed “a wholly disproportionate and unfair” fine and warned that “naked restrictions” should not be treated as equivalent in effect to the pricing practices that were previously struck down. 

The Commission rejected this line of arguments, with its legal team insisting that the regulator had followed the fining guidelines correctly, “opting in Intel’s favour when in doubt,” and stressing that the amount, around 1% of Intel’s turnover in the final infringement year, was clearly proportionate. Both sides invited the court to settle the matter by determining the appropriate fine directly, rather than sending the case back to the Commission. 

This week's ruling could clarify the evidentiary threshold for proving exclusionary abuse and the weight courts place on different categories of conduct (rebates vs. explicit restrictions). It may also shape how far the Commission can rely on partial findings after earlier annulments, entailing implications for long-running tech cases and the broader architecture of EU competition enforcement. 

Wednesday, 10 December – Vivendi to face closed Commission hearing on alleged early influence over Lagardere prior to merger approval 

This week, French media group Vivendi will appear before the European Commission in a closed hearing as part of Brussels’ ongoing probe into whether the company exerted influence over Lagardere before receiving merger approval, in breach of EU merger-control rules. The Commission suspects violations of both the notification requirement and the standstill obligation under Articles 4 and 7 of the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR), as well as potential non-compliance with the conditions attached to the June 2023 conditional clearance of the deal. 

In July 2025, the Commission issued a statement of objections, setting out its preliminary view that Vivendi may have taken steps amounting to premature implementation of the acquisition — conduct known as “gun-jumping”, which can carry fines of up to 10% of global turnover. Vivendi has rejected the allegations, insisting the Commission has misinterpreted normal business contacts and that no elements of control were exercised ahead of approval. 

Wednesday’s hearing will allow Vivendi to challenge the Commission’s evidence, including concerns that certain executives at Vivendi and Lagardere deleted emails and used auto-erase messages on Signal, behaviour the Commission views as potentially aimed at concealing pre-closing coordination. According to sources within DG COMP, the Commission believes such communications could indicate editorial or strategic influence inconsistent with the standstill obligation. 

The hearing comes against the backdrop of a separate legal dispute: earlier this year, Vivendi and Lagardere challenged the Commission’s investigative measures before the General Court (T-1119/23), arguing that some document requests risked infringing journalistic-source confidentiality. In other words, the appeal concerns the scope of the Commission’s investigative powers, not the substance of the gun-jumping allegations themselves, and remains pending. 

Overall, this case is one of the most closely watched EU merger-control enforcement files in years. A final infringement decision would reinforce the Commission’s willingness to police behavioural influence and information flows, not just structural overlaps, during pending mergers, particularly in sensitive media markets. It also sits at the intersection of merger control, corporate governance during transaction periods, and evolving EU debates on media pluralism and editorial independence. 

Thursday, 11 December – France, Germany and Spain meet in Berlin to discuss FCAS; deadline likely to slip into 2026 

Defence ministers from France, Germany and Spain will meet in Berlin on Thursday for what was originally intended to be a decisive discussion on the future of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), Europe’s flagship next-generation fighter-jet programme. Paris and Berlin had committed in July to resolve their differences and determine whether to move to Phase 2, the demonstrator stage, by 17 December. However, French officials are now quietly pushing for more time, arguing that key divergences remain. 

The central dispute remains unchanged: Dassault insists on dominating the Next Generation Fighter (NGF) pillar with roughly 80% of the workshare, while Berlin argues this violates the original commitment to equal distribution among France, Germany and Spain and sidelines Airbus Defence and Space. Inevitably, industrial impasse has become politically charged. French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin triggered frustration in Berlin last month by saying that “Germany does not have the capacity to manufacture an aircraft,” prompting German officials to also harden their position. Moreover, at the recent Franco-German summit on 17-18 November, President Macron urged industry to fulfil its “duty to deliver results” while Chancellor Merz stressed that cooperation must respect the earlier agreement and the countries’ different requirements. 

In Berlin, divisions have also deepened. Some Bundestag lawmakers favour pursuing a dual-aircraft model within FCAS to reconcile conflicting requirements and protect Airbus’ industrial role. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, however, has signalled openness to pushing a decision into 2026, a stance that MPs fear would weaken Germany’s leverage. Nevertheless, several have warned they could freeze FCAS funding in the 2027 budget if clarity is not provided this month.  

Earlier this year, Berlin’s proceeded with its own exploration of fallback options, as flagged earlier this year, including deeper cooperation with Spain, outreach to Sweden, and even a potential partnership with the UK, all intended to pressure Paris. Italy added further momentum to this dynamic last month when Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said Germany “could probably join” the rival UK–Italy–Japan Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), a project that has progressed with far fewer industrial disputes than FCAS. 

Against this backdrop, the Berlin trilateral meeting is not expected to deliver a breakthrough but rather to formalise that the 17 December deadline will not be met and that political negotiations will continue into next year 

Thursday, 11 December – Eurogroup to elect new president in two-horse race between Belgian and Greek finance ministers 

Eurozone finance ministers will meet on 11 December to elect a new Eurogroup president, following Paschal Donohoe’s resignation last month to join the World Bank. The vote will be held by secret ballot among the eurozone’s 20 finance ministers, requiring a simple majority of 11, and will determine the direction of the Eurozone’s influential forum for the next two-and-a-half years. 

The race has consolidated into a two-horse contest between Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem and Greece’s Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis, after Spain’s Carlos Cuerpo withdrew ahead of last month’s application deadline. Both candidates come from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP). Therefore, policy differences between the two are subtle: both campaigns emphasised the need to streamline Eurogroup work, avoid duplication with ECOFIN, deepen capital markets, bolster the single market, advance the digital euro, and enhance Europe’s global competitiveness. The similarity in positioning has turned attention to political and national narratives. 

Van Peteghem, considered the early favourite due to experience and profile within the Council, has highlighted the need to advance the banking union, building on the recent agreement to extend crisis-management rules to smaller banks. However, his candidacy is clouded by Belgium’s controversial stance on the EU’s proposed loan to Ukraine backed by frozen Russian state assets. Even though the issue sits outside the Eurogroup’s remit, it is repeatedly raised by diplomats when assessing Belgium’s credibility and leadership appeal. 

Pierrakakis has framed his campaign around reinforcing the “structural pillars” of the eurozone’s economic architecture, with references to demographic change and long-term sustainability. Greek officials are leaning heavily on the country’s economic recovery as a compelling narrative within the Eurogroup given Greece’s near-exit from the euro just a decade ago. 

The election process follows an accelerated timeline triggered by Donohoe’s abrupt departure only months after securing a third term.