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 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 the judgment of the General Court in case T-561/21 rejecting HSBC’s appeal against a 2021 Commission’s decision. In 2021, the Commission re-adopted a prohibition decision against HSBC, following the 2019 partial annulment by the General Court of the previous Commission’s decision in the euro interest rate derivatives cartel case of 2016, on the basis that the Commission had failed adequately to explain part of the methodology used for calculating the fines imposed. In its 2021 decision, the Commission explained in further detail how the fine was calculated and slightly reduced the fine amount previously imposed on the company.
In its judgment, the General Court upheld the Commission’s assessment and decision of 2021.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court in Cases T-386/21 - Crédit Agricole and T-406/21 – UBS (formerly Credit Suisse), rejecting their appeals against a 2021 Commission’s decision. In its 2021 decision, the Commission found that Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Crédit Agricole, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank had participated in a cartel for trading Supra-sovereign, Sovereign and Agency (SSA) bonds denominated in US Dollars on, the secondary market in the European Economic Area (EEA).
In its judgment, the General Court upheld the Commission’s assessment and decision. In particular, it confirmed that the type of exchanges between financial traders as outlined in the Commission’s decision constitute a restriction of competition by object. The General Court also upheld the methodology used by the Commission for the calculation of the fines imposed on the banks.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union. In its judgment, the Court of Justice rejected the Commission’s appeal against the ruling of the General Court of 26 January 2022. In its ruling, the General Court partially annulled a 2009 Commission's decision.
In its 2009 decision, the Commission found that Intel had engaged in two specific forms of illegal practices by: (i) giving wholly or partially hidden rebates to computer manufacturers on condition that they bought all, or almost all, their x86 central processing units (‘CPUs') from Intel (so-called ‘conditional rebates'); and (ii) paying computer manufacturers to halt or delay the launch of specific products containing competitors' x86 CPUs and to limit the sales channels available to these products (so-called 'naked restrictions').
After the General Court had first upheld the entirety of the Commission decision in 2014, the Court of Justice, upon appeal by Intel, annulled in 2019 the 2014 General Court ruling as regards the conditional rebates, and sent back this part of the decision for review by the General Court.
In its 2022 judgment, the General Court annulled the Commission's finding related to Intel's conditional rebates practice. At the same time, the General Court confirmed that Intel's naked restrictions amounted to an abuse of dominant market position under EU competition rules.
The Commission appealed the part of the 2022 judgment of the General Court concerning Intel’s conditional rebates. Therefore, today’s judgment concerns only those. On the other hand, given that the part of the 2022 General Court judgment concerning the naked restrictions has not been appealed by Intel, it has become final.
We will carefully analyse the judgment by the Court of Justice.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union upholding the 2019 Commission’s decision that prohibited the creation of a joint venture by Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp under the EU Merger Regulation (‘EUMR’).
With this judgment, the Court of Justice upholds a “gap case” prohibition under the EUMR, meaning a case where the merger is found to lead to a significant impediment to effective competition despite the fact that the merged entity is not found to be dominant in the relevant market. The Court thus confirms the Commission’s framework of review to examining potential anticompetitive effects stemming from mergers between close but non-dominant competitors.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of the preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union clarifying that certain FIFA transfer rules governing contractual relations between football players and clubs in situations of termination ‘without just cause’ of the employment with the former club constitute a restriction of the free movement of workers under Article 45 TFEU and, subject to verification by the referring court, are unlikely to be justified.
The Court also found these rules to restrict competition by object under Article 101(1) TFEU. As regards a justification under Article 101(3), the Court noted that, subject to verification by the referring court, these rules do not appear to be indispensable or necessary.
It will now be for the referring court (Mons court of appeals) to verify whether the restrictions of the free movement of workers and competition are justified.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of the judgments of the General Court. In its judgments, the General Court dismissed the parties’ actions against a 2022 Commission settlement decision imposing a total fine of €31.5 million on two producers of metal packaging for participating in a cartel.
Today’s judgment brings further clarity on the nature of the principles for case allocation and re-allocation between a Member State’s National Competition Authority and the European Commission, as included in the Commission Notice on cooperation within the Network of Competition Authorities.
See also Silgan Holdings and Others v Commission.

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court. In its judgment, the General Court upheld Google’s application for the annulment of the 2019 Commission’s decision in the Google AdSense case.
The Commission will carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the General Court. In its judgment, the General Court dismissed Qualcomm’s action for annulment of a 2019 Commission decision imposing a fine of €242 million on Qualcomm for predatory pricing.
In its judgment, the General Court fully upheld all of the substantive findings in the Commission’s decision, but partly accepted Qualcomm’s plea concerning the calculation of the amount of the fine, which results in a minor reduction of the fine by approximately €3.5 million.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union which upholds the Commission's Google Shopping Decision. In that Decision, the Commission found that Google favoured, within its general search results, its own comparison-shopping service “Google Shopping”, over those services provided by its rivals.
The Court of Justice confirms that, in certain circumstances, the favourable treatment of its own services by a dominant company can be a breach of Article 102 TFEU.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format), as well as the remarks by Executive Vice-President Vestager.

The Commission takes note of the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union setting aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 13 July 2022, Illumina v Commission (T-227/21). Today’s judgement also annuls the European Commission’s decision of 19 April 2021, accepting the request of the French Competition Authority to examine the concentration relating to the acquisition by Illumina Inc. of sole control over Grail LLC; and annuls the Commission decisions accepting the requests of the Greek, Belgian, Norwegian, Icelandic and Dutch competition authorities to join that referral request.
The Commission will carefully study the judgment and its implications and will reflect on possible next steps.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format), as well as the statement by Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager.

The Commission takes note of today’s judgement of the General Court. With this ruling, the Court confirmed the Commission's decision to designate ByteDance as a gatekeeper under the Digital Markets Act with respect to its TikTok online social networking service.
The Commission will now carefully study the judgement.
We will continue working with ByteDance, like all other gatekeepers, to ensure full compliance with the Digital Markets Act.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of today´s judgment. The judgment clarifies that a combined reading of Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (‘TFEU’) and Regulation 1393/2007 on the service in the Member States of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters (‘Service of Documents Regulation’) precludes a parent company, which is the subject of an antitrust damages action, from being validly summoned to appear before court when the documents instituting the proceedings have been served at the address of its subsidiary domiciled in another Member State in which the action was brought, even if the parent company and its subsidiary form a single economic unit.

The Commission takes note of the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union upholding the Commission’s appeal against a 2018 judgment of the General Court. In 2018, the General Court annulled parts of a 2014 Commission decision. In its 2014 decision, the Commission imposed fines totalling €427 million on Servier and five generic companies for curbing entry of cheaper versions of a cardiovascular medicine. In particular, the Commission found that all companies entered into restrictive agreements under Article 101 TFEU and that Servier put in place a strategy aimed at systematically buying out any competitive threats that amounted to an abuse of dominant position under Article 102 TFEU.
By upholding the Commission’s appeal, the Court of Justice confirmed most of the Commission’s findings included in the 2014 decision. At the same time, the Court of Justice referred back to the General Court the assessment of certain findings for it to rule on them.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

Today, the European Commission has adopted an amendment to the State aid Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework (TCTF) to prolong by six months certain provisions of the Framework aimed to address persisting market disturbances specifically in the agriculture and fisheries sectors.

The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, a Czech support measure for the construction and operation of a new nuclear power plant in Dukovany in Czechia.

The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, fully upholding a 2017 Commission's decision. In its decision, the Commission imposed a fine on Scania for its cartel activities in the Trucks sector. Scania’s fine was imposed a year after Daimler, Volvo/Renault, Iveco and DAF were also sanctioned for the same cartel. MAN received full immunity for revealing the existence of the cartel, thereby avoiding a fine. The Commission had adopted a separate decision for Scania because, unlike the other cartel participants, the company had decided not to settle the case.
See also Curia's press release (in PDF format).

The Commission takes note of today’s judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU finding that certain rules and conduct of FIFA and UEFA regarding the prior approval of new football competitions and restrictions concerning the exclusive marketing of the rights for competitions organised by FIFA and UEFA are incompatible with EU competition law and the freedom to provide services.
The Court of Justice rules that the set of rules invoked by FIFA and UEFA to prevent a new independent football competition called ‘European Super League’ lacked the necessary framework to ensure that they are transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate. It also clarifies that Article 165 TFEU cannot be regarded as exempting sport from all or some of the other provisions of primary EU law such as competition law and freedom of movement provisions.
The Court of Justice establishes that the power of a sports federation such as FIFA or UEFA, holding a dominant position, to determine the conditions for access to the market by applying certain rules and related sanctions in an arbitrary manner, without a framework of substantive criteria which are transparent, clear and precise, may infringe competition law. In particular, such rules and sanctions may, by their very nature, infringe Article 102 TFEU and constitute a restriction of competition ‘by object’ within the meaning of Article 101(1) TFEU. The same applies to restrictions concerning the exclusive marketing of the rights related to the competitions organised by FIFA and UEFA itself.
Under those circumstances, the Court of Justice considers that the system of prior authorisation for new football competitions could not be regarded as inherent in, and proportionate for, achieving legitimate objectives related to questions of interest solely to sport, in particular the open, meritocratic nature of the competitions concerned, and ensuring a certain form of ‘solidarity redistribution’ within football.