The basketball team of the legal services of the European Commission has recently won the internal competition of the institution’s employees with a foreign signing ,. Fernando Castillo, team coach and director of the Department of Legal Services responsible for competence and mergers signed. This Tuesday, on the other hand, they will not be on the same side in the EU Court of Justice. Google’s last resort is celebrated, the greatest punishment received in the EU by a company. Lamadrid will direct the legal team of the technological giant in Luxembourg; Castillo, accompanied by another Spanish, Carlos Urraca, will do the same with the lawyers of the Executive of the Union.
This legal shock is not usual among Spaniards when there is a large American technology company involved. Not so much on the side of the commission, where many Spaniards have held positions of responsibility – of fact, – as by the corporate side. The big technological companies used to, in the past, more linked to the lustrous London offices, which have now opened a branch in Dublin to maintain the clientele. In that competitive club a garrigues hole has been made by Lamadrid, its director partner in the Brussels office, according to sources with a long career in European competence affairs that are not part of the firm or the commission.
What will be at stake in the luxembourg court room on Tuesday are more than 4,000 million. In July 2018, Brussels fined Google with 4,340 million for abusing dominant position by implanting Google Search and Google Chrome when mobile manufacturers resort to the Android operating system. . The ruling confirmed almost the entire decision of the European Commission except a part that led to a small reduction in the sanction: up to 4,125 million.
The content of this lawsuit reminds a lot of what was this summer in the United States, in which to have a monopolistic behavior and, although it has not yet imposed the punishment ,. But this last option is not on the table in the case that is seen tomorrow in Luxembourg, nor can it be with the closed file. Brussels does have instead that open option in the investigation of the Alphabet advertising business.
One possibility is that in the trial on Tuesday the fine is reduced. More difficult it seems that the entire sanction is canceled, according to the legal sources consulted. Although nothing can be ruled out before the disparity of failures in Luxembourg that the American technology received last September: on the 12th of that month the TJUE definitely confirmed the sanction of 2,424 million for abuse of dominant position with Google Shopping; Six days later for breaking the rules of the advertising market in the EU.
All these cases will be present in this Tuesday’s view. Both Lamadrid and Carrillo know them. Not surprisingly, between them they total more than 400 cases defended before the judges of Luxembourg. The official has a more dilated trajectory: he has participated in more than 300. He already worked in the first lawsuits against American technological ones, who were launched when the Italian Mario Monti was on competition. Then he was ascending and, after an era in another department, he returned in 2020 to the competition and mergers to be his director.
Garrigues’s lawyer, with a master’s degree at the College of Europe and another in Harvard, has participated in more than 100 both before the TJUE and in the previous judicial instance. His experience and that of his office defending many Spanish companies – for example, in the case of aid to shipyards, known as tax lease– He opened the doors of Google or those of the European Professional Soccer Leagues, whose complaint against competition against FIFA and UEFA for the calendar has written. He has also collaborated with the Commission when he has hired external lawyers ,.
In this case, both lawyers shared a bank. They were on the same side and Encestaban For the same team. This Tuesday, however, they will defend baskets opposite
