Deciphering Huawei vs. ZTE: A Paper

The intervention of Nicolas Petit at the Training course for technical judges atthe UPC organized by the CEIPI had been discussed here some time ago. Nicolas has now published his observations on the decision Huawei vs. ZTE, which are available for download here and are interesting to read.

Among other points, Nicolas observes that upstream licensing entities are immune against the antitrust defence because he concern of the CJEU lies in the exclusion of competitors, not in the exploitation. This means that the problems of hold-up, reverse hold-up and of FRAND setting are addressed only in terms of procedural courtesy obligations among parties competing on same market and that the question of substantial pricing is left open or left to the national courts.