Challenge

INTCO is a Chinese company and the world market leader in medical disposable gloves. The company plays a central role in securing reliable, high-quality medical supplies for hospitals, healthcare providers, and patients worldwide.

The European Commission considered applying the International Procurement Instrument (IPI), which could restrict third-country suppliers’ access to EU public tenders. For INTCO, this risked exclusion from medical procurements across the Union—threatening supply continuity, competitive pricing, and Europe’s preparedness for future health emergencies, including the next pandemic.

Strategy

Alber & Geiger engaged the European Commission and the European Parliament, and coordinated with key Member States to prevent discriminatory treatment under the IPI. We made the cross-institutional case that open competition in medical tenders strengthens supply resilience, affordability, and strategic autonomy, safeguarding the Union’s readiness for the next pandemic.

Results

INTCO preserved full access to EU procurement and maintained its ability to compete in medical tenders across Europe. European hospitals retained reliable and affordable access to essential disposable gloves and supplies—reinforcing the Union’s health security and preparedness for future crises.

Challenge

The Gauselmann Group, one of the largest producers and operators of games of chance in Europe, called on Alber & Geiger when faced with a number of threatening gambling regulations in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Netherlands, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Alber & Geiger had to convince the European Commission to make a counterintuitive political risk in confronting a powerful Member State, Germany and concurrently convince the European Commission that our interpretation would stand up to CJEU scrutiny.

Strategy

Given the limited scope of directly ascertainable EU competence, the strategy employed an abstracted analytical formula to show that the various regulations were legally incoherent. It demonstrated that the laws of the Member States contradicted their own main goals on a substantive level. It utilized the jurisprudential architecture of the CJEU in lieu of their crystallization.

The multifaceted strategy also incorporated an economic dimension. Concurrently, the same technique allowed us to demonstrate that the money laundering directive could not arbitrarily encompass all the gambling operators without distinction of risk volume and activity.

Results

Ultimately, we managed to convince the European Commission to act. Its omission to launch infringement proceedings had been rebuked. Alber & Geiger was able to safeguard fundamental liberties and freedoms by bringing EU instruments into a new field and challenging archaic but powerful structures. We were also able to hold the scope of the money laundering directive back, establishing a distinction between casinos and other gambling operators.

Challenge

Flock, a medium sized entity, with a fledgling web-browser, reached for support in the Microsoft case. Microsoft was using its market presence to tie its web browser, Internet Explorer to its dominant client PC operating system. This led to accusations by the European Commission that it had infringed competition rules. Microsoft reacted by proposing a limit on the access of browsers with a market share higher than 0.5% by means of a ‘ballot screen’. Flock was at risk of being blocked out of the market.

Strategy

The strategy relied on turning technical and soft law instruments into political messages resonating with the European Commission’s language. It outlined that Microsoft’s solution would have amounted to an oligopoly. In doing so, it demonstrate that, by its very essence the ballot screen proposal was contrary to the European Commission’s  goal for open and competitive communications markets. We created a nexus of effective communications and activities that proved to be decisive.

Results

Alber & Geiger was able to keep its client’s innovative business services available to consumers. Microsoft consequently, had to revise its ‘ballot screen’. Its new proposed ballot screen would allow consumers to choose from a number of 12 suggested web browsers. These included Flock and other alternatives.