The European Commission (‘Commission’) plans to propose a new directive on the interaction of public antitrust enforcement and damage claims in June this year.

The Dutch National Association of General Practitioners (‘LHV’) calls on its members to restrict the freedom to establish their practices. For this reason the Dutch Competition Authority (‘NMa’) has therefore decided to impose a fine of EUR 7.719.000 on LHV. In addition, two LHV officials are imposed personal fines of EUR 50.000 and EUR 25.000 respectively, because the NMa holds them responsible for making LHV’s recommendations to its members.

On 20 December 2011 the European Commission has adopted a revised package of EU state aid rules for the assessment of public compensation for services of general economic interest (‘SGEI’). The package includes four instruments. With the entering into force of the package on 31 January 2012 the current policy will change on certain aspects.

On 13 April 2011 the European Commission adopted a cartel settlement decision finding that Henkel, Procter & Gamble and Unilever operated a cartel in the market for powder detergent. According to the Commission the cartel was in operation from January 2002 until March 2005 and covered Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands.

The Dutch competition authority (“NMa”) has published her 2010 annual report with the title ‘Cooperation with the NMa’. The annual report provides an overview of the activities of the NMa in 2010 by way of a schedule with key figures and an extensive explanation of her fields of work. In the annual report different sectors are described. The NMa identifies the sectors processing industry, healthcare, financial and business service, general, energy and transport. Hereafter a short description of the annual report is provided.

The European Commission has welcomed The Netherlands' compliance with EU public procurement rules in two cases. Following the pursuit of infringement cases by the Commission, the Dutch authorities have now agreed to correctly apply EU public procurement rules.