European Commission probes Romanian natural gas sector

The European Commission confirmed on 7 June that it has carried out dawn raids at the premises of Romanian natural gas companies on suspicion that they have engaged in anticompetitive practices that hinder natural gas exports to other member states and/or that they abused their dominant market position.

Few details are available of the scope of the investigation at this stage, although the Romanian state-owned company Transgaz has confirmed that was raided.  Natural gas producer OMV Petrom has also stated that it was subject to an inspection.

The raids are not the only ongoing investigation by the European Commission into natural gas exports.  In April last year the Commission issued a statement of objections to Gazprom alleging that it had hindered cross-border trade with eight other member states. The Commission maintains that Gazprom charged unfair prices and restricted its customers from selling gas outside their territory, as well as demanded concessions that did not properly relate to Gazprom’s transport infrastructure.  In September, Gazprom’s deputy chief executive reported that the company had submitted a proposed settlement to the Commission but the investigation has not reached a conclusion.

The latest raids in Romania show that Commission’s competition law interest in the energy sector has not waned but appears to have shifted eastwards as illustrated in cases involving Gazprom, CEZ, Bulgarian Energy and OPCOM.  In many respects the lines of inquiry pursued in these cases resemble those in other post-sector inquiry probes.  However, one particular line of inquiry that is unprecedented in the Gazprom case is the allegation that it is abusive for a dominant company to insist on prices that are indexed to oil prices.  It is not clear whether that allegation is being pursued in the Romanian case.  Since the majority of these energy sector competition cases have been resolved using commitments, their precedent value is likely to be more limited.  Until they are challenged successfully before the EU Courts, the case law experience is likely to give further impetus to investigations at EU and national level as well as private law challenges on the back of similar theories of alleged harm.