The ECJ is about to clarify how excise duties on beer are calculated and whether there is a specific tax duty on flavoured beer. In a request for a preliminary ruling, a Polish court asked for clarification whether substances added after fermentation (e.g. sugar, flavours) may be taken into consideration in the overall calculation of the beer tax. The Advocate General took the position that this should not be the case and that substances added after fermentation should not increase excise duties.

The new work State Aid and the Energy Sector edited by Leigh Hancher, Adrien de Hauteclocque and Francesco Maria Salerno has been published by Hart Publishing and is now available for purchase.

BLOMSTEIN partner Max Klasse has co-authored the chapter on “Aid to Nuclear and Coal” with Professor Leigh Hancher (Tilburg University), which focuses on energy aid with a distinguished historical pedigree: aid to nuclear and coal. The chapter also provides insights into the relation between the EU State aid rules and the Euratom Treaty, which governs most aspects of the nuclear sector.

BLOMSTEIN is proud to have been shortlisted in two categories for the The Lawyer European Awards 2018: Law Firm of the Year: Germany and European Specialist Law Firm of the Year and to have been “highly commended” as European Specialist Law Firm of the Year.

BLOMSTEIN is proud to have been shortlisted for the azur Awards 2019 in the category “Regional Employer”. The award will be presented for the first time for “local roots and significance for the regional applicant market”. azur is German legal publishing house JUVE’s bi-annually published career magazine directed at law students and graduates.

Once again, Roland Stein, Pascal Friton, and Hans-Joachim Prieß are ranked among the best lawyers in “Government Contracts” in Germany by Who’s Who Legal 2018 (WWL).

The 14th edition of German legal publishing house C.H. Beck’s “Prozessformularbuch” (book of litigation forms) has been published and is available for purchase now. Three BLOMSTEIN lawyers have contributed to the publication, which has become a standard reference, as authors.

On 11 December 2017, a Council Decision finally established the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in defence. The Council Decision was ultimately approved by 25 Member States, less than a month after a joint notification by the ministers of 23 Member States on their intention to participate. Along with the Council Decision, the participating Member States published an initial list of collaborative PESCO projects. These include research, procurement and upgrade projects regarding a variety of sectors, including prototypes for infantry vehicles, autonomous maritime surveillance systems and mine countermeasures, cyber security, radio and indirect fire support solutions, logistic hubs, operational support, military mobility measures and the establishment of a European Medical HQ, as well as training centres.

The pending implementation of PESCO for European defence projects raises a number of questions. We will focus on the effects on future defence procurement.

Can suppliers prohibit their authorised distributors from selling luxury products on third-party platforms such as Amazon or eBay? In its judgement of 6 December 2017 (Case C-230/16 – Coty), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) finally had the chance to shed some light on this highly-debated issue. Both suppliers and distributors have waited with great anticipation for a clarification from Luxembourg. The ECJ now took a supplier-friendly stance and confirmed that platform bans for luxury goods are not per se anticompetitive.

On 13 October 2017, President Trump refused to “recertify” the international nuclear understanding with Iran (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA).

On 31 October 2017, 41 individuals and entities associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have been designated under US terrorism sanctions. These new designations are part of a growing trend towards unilateral US sanctions imposed without prior consultation or coordination at an international level.

In the following, we give an overview of this trend, taking the recent US developments regarding the JCPOA and the US sanctions on Russia as examples. We examine the potential repercussions of these US sanctions for EU companies and potential reactions by the EU.

We are proud to have been announced as the winner in two categories of the prestigious JUVE awards on 26 October 2017 at a gala ceremony hosted by the legal publishing house JUVE at the Opera house in Frankfurt. BLOMSTEIN was awarded the Start-Up of the Year award and the Law Firm of the Year for Public Procurement Law already in our first year on the market. The JUVE Awards are considered the most prestigious industry awards in the German legal market.

„The Berlin based boutique that opened in 2016 has already become a well-established market player. Competitors rave about the ‘excellent legal expertise combined with international experience’ of the Freshfields-Spin-off. ‘Combining the practice groups Public Procurement, Antitrust and State Aid plays out extremely well.’“