The CJEU on action for damages for breach of competition law
After the opinion of Advocate General Emiliou, yesterday (4 July 2024) the Court of Justice delivered its judgment on the case No C-425/22, La MOL Magyar Olaj- és Gázipari Nyrt v. Mercedes-Benz Group AG.
The request for a preliminary ruling – lodge on 28 June 2022 by the Supreme Court of Hungary (Kúria) – has been made in proceedings commenced after a Decision, adopted by the European Commission in 2016, in which it concluded that, by colluding on gross list pricing for medium trucks and heavy trucks, several undertakings – including Mercedes-Benz Group AG – had infringed EU competition law.
More specifically, La MOL Magyar Olaj- és Gázipari Nyrt, established in Hungary, has a controlling interest in the companies belonging to the MOL group which are established in various Member States. Those subsidiaries have purchased trucks indirectly from the defendant (Mercedes-Benz Group AG) at prices which were allegedly distorted due to the infringement of competition law. In the main proceedings, the applicant is requesting the Hungarian courts, to grant an order against the defendant, domiciled in Germany, for compensation in respect of the difference paid in excess, due to the infringement of competition rules. The plaintiff relied on the concept of “economic unit”: according to MOL, Hungarian courts’ jurisdiction is based on Art 7(2) of Regulation (UE) No 1215/2012, since its registered office, as the centre of the economic and financial interests of the group that it forms with its subsidiaries, is the place where the “harmful event” occurred. Mercedes-Benz Group put forward an objection to jurisdiction, arguing that the provision relied on could not provide a basis for the jurisdiction of the court seised.
In light of the above, the Hungarian Supreme Court seeks the interpretation of Art 7(2) of Regulation No 1215/2012 as regards whether, in essence, a parent company can rely on the competition law concept of an economic unit in order to establish the jurisdiction of the courts where it has its registered seat to hear and determine its claim for damages for the harm suffered by its subsidiaries.
In the decision, the Court of Justice, similar to the opinion of Advocate General Richard de la Tour, stated that Art 7(2) of Regulation No 1215/2012 must be interpreted “as meaning that the concept of the ‘place where the harmful event occurred’ does not cover the registered office of a parent company bringing an action for damages for harm suffered solely by its subsidiaries on account of anticompetitive conduct of a third party, which constitutes a breach of Article 101 TFEU, even if it is claimed that that parent company and those subsidiaries form part of the same economic unit”.
On the topics addressed in the judgment, the readers of RDIPP may refer to:
Jürgen Basedow, 2016, No 3, 633 ff.;
Moreover, see, in our Book Series:
Costanza Honorati, Book No 45; Alberto Malatesta (ed.), Book No 63.