Case C-882/19 Sumal SL v. Mercedes Benz Trucks España SL
| Author | Caroline Cauffman |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X221130493 |
| Published date | 01 August 2022 |
| Date | 01 August 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Case Notes |
CaseC-882/19 Sumal SL
v. Mercedes Benz Trucks
España SL
Caroline Cauffman*,**
1. Introduction
Since Akzo, it is settled case law of the Court of Justice that, in public enforcement cases, the
conduct of a subsidiary may be imputed to the parent company, in particular where, although
having a separate legal personality, that subsidiary does not decide independently upon its own
conduct on the market, but carries out, in all material respects, the instructions given to it by the
parent company,
1
having regard in particular to the economic, organizational and legal links
between those two legal entities.
2
In such a case, the parent company and its subsidiary form a
single economic unit and therefore a single undertaking; this enables the Commission to address
a decision imposing fines to the parent company without having to establish its direct involvement
in the infringement.
3
The Court of Justice also recognized that, under certain conditions, a parent
*
Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands
**
University of Hasselt, Hasselt, Belgium
Corresponding author:
Caroline Cauffman, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
E-mail: caroline.cauffman@maastrichtuniversity.nl
1. CaseC-97/08 P Akzo Nobel NV v. Commission (hereafter: Akzo Nobel), EU:C:2009:536, para. 58 referring to Case 48/69
Imperial Chemical Industries v. Commission (hereafter: ICI), EU:C:1972:70, para. 132 and 133; Case 52–69 Geigy
v. Commission, EU:C:1972:73, para. 44; Case6/72 Europemballage and Continental Can v. Commission (hereafter:
Europemballage), EU:C:1973:22, para. 15; CaseC-286/98 P Stora Kopparbergs Bergslags AB v. Commission (here-
after: Stora Kopparbergs), EU:C:2000:630, para. 26. See also Case107/82 Allgemeine Elektricitäts- Gesellschaft
AEG –Telefunken AG v. Commission (hereafter: Allgemeine Elektricitäts), EU:C:1983:293, para. 49.
2. Akzo Nobel, para. 58, referring mutatis mutandis to Joined CasesC-189/02 P, C-202/02 P, C-205/02 P, C-208/02 P and
C-213/02 P Dansk Rørindustri and Others v. Commission (hereafter: Dansk Rørindustri), EU:C:2005:408, para. 117;
CaseC-280/06 Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato v. Ente Tabacchi Italiani/ETI SpA, EU:
C:2007:775, para. 49. See also e.g. Joined CasesC-201/09 P and C-216/09 P ArcelorMittal Luxembourg SA
v. Commission (hereafter: ArcelorMittal), EU:C:2011:190, para. 96; Case C-440/11P Commission v. Stichting
Administratiekantoor Portielje (hereafter: Stichting), EU:C:2013:514, para. 38; Joined CasesC-247/11 P and C-253/
11 P Areva SA and Alstom SA v. Commission (hereafter: Areva and Alstom), EU:C:2014:257, para. 30; Case C-155/
14 P Evonik Degussa GmbH and AlzChem AG v. Commission (hereafter: Evonik Degussa), EU:C:2016:446, para. 27.
3. Joined CasesC-628/10 P and C-14/11 P Commission v. Alliance One International and Others (hereafter: Alliance One),
EU:C:2012:479, para. 44; CaseC-90/09 P General Química v. Commission (hereafter: General Química), EU:
C:2011:21, para. 38; Akzo Nobel, para. 59; Areva and Alstom, para. 31.
Case Note
Maastricht Journal of European and
Comparative Law
2022, Vol. 29(4) 499–519
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/1023263X221130493
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company and its subsidiary are presumed to form part of the same undertaking. For a long time,
these statements only appeared in public enforcement cases, where the Court of Justice acts as
the court of last resort for appeals against Commission decisions imposing fines for infringements
of EU competition law.
Even after the Court of Justice recognized in Courage and Crehan that ‘the practical effect of the
prohibition laid down in Article [101(1) TFEU] would be put at risk if it were not open to any indi-
vidual to claim damages for loss caused to him by a contract or by conduct liable to restrict or distort
competition’, it was long disputed in legal scholarship whether the concept of undertaking, includ-
ing its consequences for parent company liability as applied in public enforcement cases, was also to
be applied in private enforcement cases.
4
Equally, national courts have long refused to apply the
competition law doctrine of parent company liability in damages cases.
5
This persisted under the
Antitrust Damages Directive, although Article 1 of the Directive mentions the ‘undertaking’as
the entity that is liable to pay damages.
6
The Court of Justice put an end to this discussion in Skanska, stating clearly that since ‘EU com-
petition law refers to the activities of undertakings’
7
and ‘the liability for damage caused by infrin-
gements of EU competition rules is personal in nature, the undertaking which infringes those rules
must answer for the damage caused by the infringement’.
8
Consequently, ‘the entities which are required to compensate for the damage caused by a cartel
or practice prohibited by Article 101 TFEU are the undertakings, within the meaning of that pro-
vision, which have participated in that cartel or that practice’
9
and ‘the concept of “undertaking”,
[…] cannot have a different scope with regard to the imposition of fines by the Commission
under Article 23(2) of Regulation No 1/2003
10
as compared with actions for damages for infringe-
ment of EU competition rules’.
11
Although the Antitrust Directive did not apply to the dispute in Skanska, the Court made clear
that its judgment was in line with Article 1(1) first sentence of the Directive.
12
4. B. Braat, ‘Kartelschade in Nederland; een eerste aanzet’,9Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Europees Recht (2013), p. 321;
P. Von Hülsen and B. Kasten, ‘Passivlegitimation von Konzernen im Kartell-Schadenersatzprozess? –Gedanken zur
Umsetzung der Richtlinie 2014/104/EU’,Neue Zeitschrift für Kartellrecht (2015), p. 300; J.S. Kortmann, ‘The Draft
Directive on Antitrust Damages and its Likely Effects on National law’, in A.S. Hartkamp (ed.), The Influence of EU
Law on National Private Law –General Part, (Wolters Kluwer, 2014), p. 681; J.S. Kortmann, ‘Toerekening van
externe (rechts)handelingen aan de rechtspersoon’, in G. Van Solinge (ed.), Relativering van Rechtspersoonlijkheid
(Wolters Kluwer, 2012), p. 75; S. Thomas and S. Legner, ‘Die wirtschaftliche Einheit im Kartellzivilrecht’,NZKart
(2016), p. 155 et seq.; P. Voet van Vormizeele, ‘Die EG-kartellrechtliche Haftungszurechnung im Konzern im
Widerstreit zu den nationalen Gesellschaftsrechtsordnungen’,60Wirtschaft und Wettbewerb (2010), p. 1016 et seq.
5. District Court Middle-Netherlands 20 July 2017, NL:RBMNE:2016:4284; Regional Court of Berlin 6 August 2013,
ECLI:DE:LGBE:2013:060813U16O193.11, para. 81–82.
6. Directive2014/104/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 November 2014 on certain rules governing
actions for damages under national law for infringements of the competition law provisions of the Member States and of
the European Union, [2014] OJ L 349 (hereafter: Antitrust Damages Directive).
7. Case C-724/17 Skanska Industrial Solutions and Others (hereafter: Skanska), EU:C:2019:204, para. 30.
8. Ibid., para. 31.
9. Ibid., para. 32.
10. Regulation(EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in
Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty, [2003] OJ L 1.
11. Skanska, para. 47.
12. Ibid., para. 35.
500 Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 29(4)
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