tinyBuild subsidiary “Versus Evil” will close its doors, the company announced. The Baltimore-based publisher was founded in September 2013 and has released a number of games since then.
“Today is a sad day,” the company said in a tweet shortly before Christmas. “After 10 wonderful years, Versus Evil is closing its doors. We enjoyed introducing you to the best indie games we could find and sharing so many great memories with all of you, our amazing community! From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU for everything!”
According to Versus Evil production manager Lance James, “This was not a decision or choice by Versus Evil.”
Versus Evil still has several upcoming titles in the wings, including Monolith: Requiem of the Ancients and Lil’ Guardsman. These will subsequently be distributed via the parent company tinyBuild.
The Munich fashion retailer Hallhuber is closing its online shop as a result of the ongoing insolvency proceedings. Existing claims from returns that have already been made cannot currently be paid out.
In May of this year, Hallhuber had to file for bankruptcy for the second time in a short period of time. The Munich company wanted to reorganize itself under self-management. The reasons were the “well-known effects of the Ukraine crisis, increased inflation and general reluctance to buy”. Now the fashion retailer has also closed its online shop – temporarily, it seems, “they are working hard to have it fully available again as soon as possible,” according to a message on the website.
For the time being, customers should use the almost 200 Hallhuber stores in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands “to discover, try on and shop our current collections,” the company continued.
returns
Circumstances now arise, especially with returns: Existing claims from returns that have already been made can currently no longer be paid out to customers. The claim will not be lost, but once the self-administration process is completed, only a portion of this will probably be able to be paid, the amount of which has not yet been determined.
Hallhuber continues: “If, however, you are considering returning the item now, we would like to point out the following to you as a precautionary measure: The returned goods will become the property of Hallhuber. However, your resulting claim for repayment must unfortunately be treated in the same way as those that already exist Payment claims from other creditors. This means that it cannot currently be paid out and will only be paid at an indefinite rate at the end of the insolvency proceedings. It is also not possible to personally return returns in our stores. This means that we cannot accept items from you on site either Please decide for yourself whether you want to exercise your basic right of return under these legal conditions or whether you want to keep unwanted items and resell them privately.”
Competition watchdogs have targeted Lieferando because of price clauses embedded in contracts with restaurants. The proceedings have now been discontinued because there is no sufficient evidence that these make it more difficult for other delivery services to enter the market.
The Federal Cartel Office has suspended proceedings against the food delivery service Lieferando until further notice due to price clauses embedded in contracts with restaurants. All in all, the competition authority currently has no sufficient evidence to suggest that the clause represents a serious obstacle to the market entry of other delivery services, said head of the authority Andreas Mundt.
Possible obstacle to competition
The background: The delivery service – the top dog in Germany according to the cartel office – requires restaurants to ensure that the prices charged by the Lieferando subsidiary, which is part of Just Eat Takeaway, correspond to the prices in the restaurant’s own sales channels. The competition authorities see such clauses as a possible obstacle to competition. This means that restaurants may lose the incentive to commission other brokerage platforms on more favorable terms. The Federal Court of Justice had confirmed the ban on a similar best price clause on the hotel platform Booking.com.
However, the market conditions for food deliveries are different than in the booking case, said Mundt. The market and business models surrounding food orders are in flux. Restaurants are increasingly taking advantage of new alternative offers and are sometimes commissioning several delivery services at the same time. “All in all, we currently have no sufficient evidence to suggest that the clause represents a thorough obstacle to the market entry of new platforms with differentiated offers,” said the head of the authority.
Discontinuation of proceedings
However, the discontinuation of the proceedings for discretionary reasons does not make any statement about the admissibility of the investigated best price clause under antitrust law, it was said. The cartel office will continue to monitor competition and take action if this appears necessary.
According to competition watchdogs, best price clauses often only appear to be advantageous for consumers. By preventing cheaper prices through other distribution channels, they can have a negative impact on competition between competing providers of online intermediation services and make it more difficult for new providers to enter the market.
