The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court that annuls a 2021 State aid decision, in which the Commission found that the aid granted to the Lithuanian public service broadcaster LRT constituted existing aid and therefore rejected the complaint.
In its judgment, the Court found that the Commission should have initiated formal proceedings, since the financing of the LRT – that existed prior to Lithuania’s accession to the EU - was substantially changed subsequently.
The Commission will carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps.

The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the General Court dismissing the applicants’ actions which sought the annulment of Commission decision of 15.3.2021 in case SA.55805. In that decision, the Commission found that the extension of the frequency allocations of digital terrestrial TV (DTT) network operators until 2030 by Czechia constitutes ‘no aid’.
In its judgment, the General Court dismissed the actions of the applicants as inadmissible, as they did not sufficiently demonstrate to be individually concerned by the Commission decision. The General Court also confirmed the position of the Commission that the measure was not an aid scheme.

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-581/23 Beevers Kaas.
The judgment clarifies under which conditions an exclusive distribution system may benefit from an exemption under the 2010 Vertical Block Exemption Regulation.
The Court confirmed for the first time that one of the conditions for an active sales ban imposed to protect an exclusive distribution system to benefit from the 2010 Vertical Block Exemption regulation is that the supplier must obtain the (express or implicit) acceptance of the sales ban by all its other distributors in the EEA.

The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the General Court, which dismissed Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s application for annulment of a 2017 Commission State aid decision finding that the financing of the operator of Frankfurt-Hahn airport between 2018 – 2022 was in line with EU State aid rules.
Today’s judgment follows a 2021 judgment in which the General Court initially annulled the Commission decision and a 2023 ruling by the Court of Justice, which referred the case back to the General Court following an appeal by Rhineland-Palatinate (majority shareholder of Frankfurt-Hahn at the time), case C-466/21 P. The Court of Justice saw errors in the General Court’s assessment of Deutsche Lufthansa’s AG standing and the admissibility of its action.
The General Court, taking into account the Court of Justice’s ruling, held that the application for annulment should be rejected as inadmissible. In its application, Deutsche Lufthansa AG has not expressly raised a plea alleging an infringement of its procedural rights. Given that the application was already declared inadmissible on that basis, the General Court has left open whether Deutsche Lufthansa AG can be considered as an interested third party.

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court. In its judgment, the Court dismisses Symrise’s appeal against the Commission decision ordering an inspection at Symrise AG.
The General Court upholds the Commission decision that entitled the Commission to conduct an unannounced inspection at the premises of Symrise for investigating its possible participation in a cartel in violation of Article 101 TFEU.
The judgment confirms that the inspection decision was neither arbitrary nor disproportionate.

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the Court of Justice on this preliminary reference case. The Court considered that the exemption from the Polish tax on immovable property for land, buildings and structures forming part of railway infrastructure does not appear to be a selective measure.
The Court provided clarifications regarding the assessment of the selectivity of tax exemptions. In particular, the Court explained that a general and abstract tax exemption is in principle part of the normal tax system and is presumed not to confer a selective advantage. However, there are two situations in which such an exemption could be selective. The first is where it forms part of a tax system configured according to manifestly discriminatory parameters. The second is where it benefits only to a consistent category of undertakings because the conditions set by the relevant legislation for benefiting from that exemption are connected with one or more specific characteristics of those undertakings.
The Commission will carefully assess the implications of this judgement.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the General Court, upholding the Commission’s decision of 22 December 2020 approving Polish State aid to LOT under the Temporary Framework for State aid measures to support the economy in the current COVID-19 outbreak.
In today’s judgment, the General Court confirmed that the Commission provided sufficient reasoning in its decision for its conclusion that the measure was compatible with the internal market, in particular since it fulfilled the conditions set out in the Temporary Framework with respect to recapitalisation measures.

The Commission takes note of the judgment by the General Court upholding a 2021 Commission decision. In its decision, the Commission found that Bank of America, Natixis, Nomura, RBS (now NatWest), UBS, UniCredit and WestLB (now Portigon) breached EU antitrust rules through the participation of a group of traders in a cartel in the primary and secondary market for European Government Bonds (‘EGB').
In its judgment, the General Court found that the Commission had a legitimate interest to address the decision to all cartelists, irrespective of whether they were subject to fines. In addition, it largely upheld the amount of the fines imposed by the Commission, with the exception of those imposed on Nomura and UniCredit, which the General Court slightly reduced.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court dismissing an appeal against a 2023 Commission decision. In its 2023 decision, the Commission rejected a complaint against a number of companies active in quartz sand extraction in Belgium for alleged anticompetitive practices. In particular, the Commission found that the complaint did not involve a sufficient Union interest to justify further investigation, especially considering that the matter had already been brought to the attention of a Belgian court and that the latter appeared well placed to remedy the issues complained of.
In its judgment, the General Court confirmed, among others, that the Commission may reject complaints when, in cases with a predominantly national dimension, national courts are well placed to address the issues concerned.

The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the General Court which dismissed the claim for damages of Rems Kargins against the Commission, concerning allegedly unlawful interference in national judicial proceedings before the Supreme Court of Latvia.
The General Court confirmed that the Commission’s submission of written observations to the Supreme Court was in line with the respective procedural rules, according to which the Commission is allowed to intervene, on its own initiative, in national court proceedings. The General Court confirmed that such interventions of the Commission are not binding on national courts, and that they pay particular attention to respect the independence of national courts. Consequently, the General Court denied liability of the Commission for any alleged damages the applicant suffered in the context of the resolution of former Latvian bank Parex. It also found that the legal mechanism for the Commission to submit written observations in national court proceedings does not constitute a violation of primary EU law, such as the principle of separation of powers between executive and judiciary.

The Commission takes note of today’s preliminary ruling by the Court of Justice confirming that a public contribution, granted to compensate an undertaking for the closure of a production site, constitutes State aid, provided that it is established, first, that the same undertaking would not have been able to obtain the same advantage in circumstances corresponding to the normal conditions of the market concerned and, second, that there is effective competition on that market.
In particular, the Court of Justice has confirmed that such a public contribution seems to confer an advantage on the beneficiary undertaking by mitigating costs (i.e. the costs for the cessation of the economic activity) that under normal market conditions are included in the budget of any undertaking.

The Commission takes note of the Judgment of the General Court upholding a 2022 Com-mission's decision, not to raise objections to a Spanish and Portuguese measure aiming to reduce electricity wholesale prices in the Iberian market.
In its Judgment, the General Court held that the Commission was right in finding that there was no serious doubts that the measure was compatible with EU State aid rules and EU En-ergy law. In essence, the General Court held that the Commission did not commit an error by not taking the applicants’ specific position on the electricity market into account. The General Court held that there was no discrimination and that the Commission was correct in finding the measure proportionate.

The Commission takes note of the judgement of the Court of Justice of the EU which The judgment clarifies that the Council Directive 96/67/EC on access to the groundhandling market at Community airports does not exclude the application of EU competition law’s prohibition of abusive conduct in situations where the airport provider refuses access to the airport infrastructure necessary for the provision of ground handling services at EU airports.
In particular, the Court confirmed that the mere existence of sectoral rules in no way means that the conduct in question is exempted from the competition rules laid down by the Treaties, irrespective of whether or not those sectoral rules are applicable to that conduct.

The Commission takes note of today’s preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in case Alphabet and Others (C-233/23) clarifying the interpretation of Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’).
In particular, the Court clarified that, where a dominant company has developed a digital platform intended for use by third parties, it may constitute an abuse of dominant position to refuse to grant interoperability between that platform and a third-party app. The Court has also emphasised that this refusal can be an abuse even if access to that platform is not indispensable for the commercial operation of the third-party app, but is such as to make that app more attractive to consumers.
Furthermore, the Court clarified that the fact that the third-party app and other competitors remained on the market or even grew their position despite not having access to the dominant company’s platform does not mean that the refusal of interoperability did not have anti-competitive effects and was therefore not abusive. Such refusal can still be considered abusive if it has the potential to hinder competition on the market.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of today’s preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice in the Athenian Brewery Case (C-393/23). The case concerns the question whether a person claiming to have been harmed by an infringement of EU competition law can sue the company which committed that infringement at the seat of the parent company in another Member State jointly with that parent company.
The judgment clarifies that a parent company and its subsidiary can be jointly sued at the place where one of them is domiciled if the parent company exercises decisive influence on the economic activity of the subsidiary.
Where the parent company holds all or almost all the shares in the capital of its subsidiary, a presumption applies that it exercises such decisive influence over the subsidiary.

The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which sets aside a 2023 judgment of the General Court. In its judgment, the General Court partially upheld an action for annulment brought by Carpatair against a 2020 Commission State aid decision which found, after a formal investigation procedure, that several measures granted by Romanian public authorities to Timisoara airport and airlines operating at that airport either did not constitute State aid or constituted compatible State aid.
In its judgment, the Court of Justice found that the 2023 judgement by the General Court is vitiated by inadequate statement of reasons on Carpatair’s legal standing to bring an action for annulment of the 2020 Commission’s State aid decision. It thus decided to set aside the 2023 judgment, and to refer the case back to the General Court.

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court upholding a 2021 Commission State aid decision. In its decision, the Commission found that a €1.2 billion rescue loan to TAP SGPS was in line with the requirements of the Commission's Guidelines on rescue and restructuring aid (“R&R Guidelines”), and thus compatible with the internal market.
In its judgment, the General Court fully upheld the Commission’s assessment and decision, and concluded that the Commission did not disregard the conditions of eligibility for rescue aid.

The Commission takes note of the Court’s ruling on cases C-510/23 Trenitalia SpA, and C-511/23 Caronte & Tourist, which clarify that Member States may establish national rules on the duration of pre-investigations in consumer and competition law proceedings, provided that these rules comply with the principle of effectiveness and relevant EU secondary law.
Specifically, the Court of Justice emphasises that such rules must not render the implementation of EU law practically impossible or excessively difficult.
In the case at hand, the Court finds that time limits which are excessively short, and which may preclude national authorities from finding and fining infringements of EU consumer and competition law, pose a systematic risk. Consequently, the Court found that such time limits are incompatible with EU law.
It is for the referring court to implement the Court’s ruling.
The Court’s ruling is in line with the Commission’s position.

The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the General Court upholding a 2022 Commission State aid decision. In that decision the Commission found, after a formal investigation started in 2019, that a capital injection provided by the ultimately joint Danish/Swedish owned company PostNord Group AB to its subsidiary Post Danmark does not consitute State aid.
In addition, the decision concluded that Denmark and Sweden should recover the aid that they had directly granted in the form of two capital injections to the holding PostNord AB.
In its judgment, the General Court declared the application inadmissible since the applicant did not demonstrate that it has standing to bring proceedings against the Commission decision.

The judgment concerns the assignment of competition law damages claims by several putative victims to a legal person for the purpose of bringing a single damages action in only one lawsuit (in which that legal person acts as claimant).
It clarifies that the principles of effectiveness and effective judicial protection preclude the interpretation of national law which, in the absence of a final decision by a competition authority finding an infringement of competition law, automatically prohibits putative victims of competition law infringements from assigning their claims for compensation on a fiduciary basis to a legal person for the purpose of bringing a single damages action, if no other equivalent legal or contractual possibilities for consolidating claims for damages exist. The assignment on a fiduciary basis implies that putative victims only receive payment on their claims, if the damages action (in or out of court) is successful.
If no interpretation of the national provisions forming the basis of such a prohibition, which is consistent with the principles of effectiveness and effective judicial protection, is possible, national courts must disapply the said provisions.