EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

Prague, Czechia

of such investigation falling within the same scope of the actions interrupting the limitation period. The Court first recalled that that pursuant to Article 35 of Regulation 1/2003 the limitation periods applicable to proceedings by national competition authorities are not governed by EU law (para 44 of the Judgement). It is therefore for Member States to establish the rules on limitation periods, in compliance with the principle of effectiveness and without undermining the uniform application of EU law, as required under Article 4 TEU (paras 44–47). Referring to its previous case law (in particular Judgement of 7 December 2010, VEBIC , C-439/08; Judgement of 14 June 2011, Pfleiderer , C-360/09; and Judgement of 28 March 2019, Cogeco Communications, C‑637/17), the Court further noted that national rules laying down limitation periods must be devised in such a way as to strike a balance between, on the one hand, the objectives of providing legal certainty and ensuring that cases are dealt with within a reasonable time as general principles of EU law and, on the other, the effective and efficient application of the competition rules (paras 48 and 49). To assess whether this balance is achieved, all elements of those rules must be considered including the specific features of competition law cases and of the fact that those cases require, in principle, a complex factual and economic analysis (paras 50-51). Therefore, with a view to ensuring the full effectiveness of the EU competition rules, national rules on limitation must not constitute a systematic obstacle to the imposition of fines (paras 52-53). CJEU noted that a strict interpretation of the national legislation, totally prohibiting the limitation period from being interrupted by action taken subsequently during the investigation, appears likely to compromise the effective application of the rules of EU competition law (paras 54-56). In conclusion, the Court noted that it is for the national courts to determine whether the interpretation of the national limitation rules would violate the principle of effectiveness (para 57). The Court further indicated that disapplying of the legislation would not be required given that, based on the information provided by the national court, an interpretation of the Romanian competition act in conformity with EU law appeared possible (paras 58–65). Whiteland is another landmark Judgement that confirms the key importance of the principle of effectiveness in the application of Article 101 TFEU. Most noteworthy, CJEU had already clarified in Cogeco (Judgement of 28 March 2019, Cogeco Communications, C‑637/17) in the context of damages actions arising from competition law infringements that limitation periods which cannot be suspended or interrupted during proceedings before NCAs may violate (under specific conditions and viewed in the context of all relevant national provisions) the principle of effectiveness under Article 101 TFEU in conjunction with Article 4

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