Hello, welcome to another Emlex podcast. Today we're coming to you from Emlex's Brussels offices

at the heart of the city's European quarter. My name's James Panicki. And as Emlex's

Brussels managing editor, I usually discouragedage journalists from writing about clocks,

watches, or any device that might draw attention to the passage of time and by implication

my own mortality. This advice is routinely ignored by Matthew Newman, our senior correspondent,

who covers EU mergers and competition. Matthew is a reporter who is seemingly unfazed by the prospect of our short lives

appearing meaningless as we gaze into eternity. This explains why he keeps returning to the legal fight

involving Swiss luxury watchmakers as they defend what they see as their right to deny independent repairers' spare parts.

The brands, which include Rolex and

Swatch, say they're entitled to choose who they give their spare parts to and have been fighting

a legal battle against the independent watch repairers since 2008. Talk about staring into eternity.

Matthew Newman, hello. Hello.

Now we'll get to the latest developments in just a moment, but first let's recap. Who are these

independent repairers and what do they want?

These are small shops and if you go into any city center you might find one or two of these still

left over. They're usually independent people, meaning they're very small operations.

And if you go in there and you want your watch fixed, you'll probably get service with a smile.

But you may not get service for the big watchmakers. And that is because the big watchmakers, the luxury goods makers,

they do not want these small independent repairs to be handling their watches.

And it's quite simple.

It's about quality control.

So they feel that a watch, which you might spend, let's say, three or four thousand euros on,

...