The article discusses the recent decision by the Commission to once again impose interim measures in appropriate anti-trust cases early during the investigation. This announced new policy has been followed up by announcing that interim measures could be decided in the Broadcom case. The article briefly discusses the legal conditions that must be met by the Commission and points out pros and cons in this regard. In particular, it is stressed that in view of the serious economic and perhaps irreversible market consequences such measures may have for an undertaking which at that point of time has not been found guilty of any infringement – and therefore is to be presumed innocent – such measures should only be considered in the most serious cases. It must be sufficiently demonstrated that an infringement is at least more likely than not and that it is clearly urgent to impose interim measures to prevent irreversible damage to competition.
