Bertelsmania comes to Luxembourg
IPKat - IP news and fun for everyone: They don’t come much longer and more complex than Case C-413/06 P Bertelsmann and Sony Corporation of America v Impala, yesterday’s decision of the Court of Justice of the European Communities in a case that, while not actually being an IP case, says a lot about how the ECJ views the concentration of IP rights — even weak ones like copyrights.
The ECJ was asked to rule on an appeal against the decision of the Court of First Instance (CFI). That court, in a controversial decision, annulled the European Commission’s approval of a 2004 merger between Sony Music and BMG. According to the CFI, the examination into whether there was already collective market dominance in the music industry, and whether that dominance might grow following the Sony BMG deal, was too cursory.
Yesterday the ECJ overturned the decision of the CFI and effectively supported the original decision of the Commission. The new judgment runs to 22,439 words. Fortunately, for those who like the easy way out, ECJ Press Release 49/08 has made things a little easier. This, in gently edited form, is what it says:
“… On 19 July 2004, the Commission approved the concentration of the global recorded music businesses of Bertelsmann AG and Sony (with the exception of Sony’s activities in Japan) into three newly-created companies to be operated under the name Sony BMG.
Following an action brought by Impala, an international association of independent music production companies, the Court of First Instance annulled that decision … on the grounds that it was vitiated by manifest errors of assessment and was inadequately reasoned.
As a result of that annulment, the Commission carried out further review proceedings relating to that merger and approved the creation of Sony BMG for a second time on 3…