In the absence of a binding regulation under EU law on the subject, it is for Member States to establish and apply national rules on limitation periods for the imposition of penalties by national competition authorities, including the procedures for suspension and/or interruption. However, Member States must exercise that competence in accordance with EU law, and in particular the principle of effectiveness. Accordingly, they may not render the implementation of EU law impossible in practice or excessively difficult and, in particular, they must ensure that the rules which they establish or apply do not jeopardise the effective application of Articles 101 TFEU and 102 TFEU.
In its judgment of 21 January 2021 (Whiteland Import Export, C-308/19), the Court of Justice ruled that Article 4(3) TEU and Article 101 TFEU, read in the light of the principle of effectiveness, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation, according to which the decision to initiate an investigation, adopted by the national competition authority, concerning an infringement of EU competition law rules, is the final action of that authority which may have the effect of interrupting the limitation period relating to its power to impose penalties and excludes any subsequent action, for the purpose of proceedings or investigation, from interrupting that period, where it becomes apparent, having regard to all elements of the limitation rules at issue, that such an exclusion presents a systemic risk that acts constituting such infringements may go unpunished, which it is for the referring court to verify.
Indeed, the Court of Justice considered that totally prohibiting the limitation period from being interrupted by action taken subsequently in the course of the investigation appears likely to compromise the effective application of the rules of EU competition law by national competition authorities, in that that interpretation could present a systemic risk that acts constituting infringements of that law may go unpunished. It recalled that EU competition law cases require, in principle, a complex factual and economic analysis. Thus, in a significant number of cases involving a high degree of complexity, such subsequent action, which necessarily extends the duration of the proceedings, may constitute an important stage in the investigation and might prove necessary.
This judgment emphasises 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 Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, in order to safeguard the public interest in preventing the operation of the internal market being distorted by agreements or practices harmful to competition.
Please contact Pierre de Bandt or Jeroen Dewispelaere for further information about this case and/or for general legal advice relating to competition law.