The General Court has rejected a challenge to commitments agreements between Thomson Reuters and the European Commission where competitor Morningstar claimed that the settlement failed adequately to address the competition issues raised by Thomson Reuters’ licensing of real-time financial information.
In 2012 the Commission accepted commitments from Thomson Reuters to remove contractual provisions which hindered the ability of its customers to switch to competitors. This followed the Commission’s preliminary view that Thomson Reuters could be abusing a dominant position in the provision of consolidated real-time data.
Morningstar appealed the commitments decision made under Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003 which allows the Commission to accept binding commitments in order to resolve an investigation under Article 101/102 TFEU and without concluding that there has been an infringement.
Morningstar claimed that the cost of switching would be borne by customers and it was not aware of any Thomson Reuters customers switching to rivals since the commitments had been put in place.
The General Court upheld the Commission’s decision, ruling that the correct test was whether the commitments had been sufficient to address the issues that were raised in the Commission’s investigation. The fact that other commitments could have been accepted or might even have been more favourable to competition did not justify annulment of the decision. The Court agreed with the Commission that the commitments were not intended to eliminate all the costs of switching, but they did represent a genuine improvement of the situation.
The judgment is perhaps not surprising in light of the Alrosa case which clarified a number of issues relating to the Commission’s powers under Article 9 (albeit in that case a third party challenged the intrusive nature of the commitments). The Commission is not obliged to consider and seek different solutions, provided that the commitments address the concerns identified to the undertaking in the preliminary assessment.
CaseT-76/14 Morningstar, Inc. v Commission
Case C-441/07 P Commission v Alrosa Company Limited
In 2012 the Commission accepted commitments from Thomson Reuters to remove contractual provisions which hindered the ability of its customers to switch to competitors. This followed the Commission’s preliminary view that Thomson Reuters could be abusing a dominant position in the provision of consolidated real-time data.
Morningstar appealed the commitments decision made under Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003 which allows the Commission to accept binding commitments in order to resolve an investigation under Article 101/102 TFEU and without concluding that there has been an infringement.
Morningstar claimed that the cost of switching would be borne by customers and it was not aware of any Thomson Reuters customers switching to rivals since the commitments had been put in place.
The General Court upheld the Commission’s decision, ruling that the correct test was whether the commitments had been sufficient to address the issues that were raised in the Commission’s investigation. The fact that other commitments could have been accepted or might even have been more favourable to competition did not justify annulment of the decision. The Court agreed with the Commission that the commitments were not intended to eliminate all the costs of switching, but they did represent a genuine improvement of the situation.
The judgment is perhaps not surprising in light of the Alrosa case which clarified a number of issues relating to the Commission’s powers under Article 9 (albeit in that case a third party challenged the intrusive nature of the commitments). The Commission is not obliged to consider and seek different solutions, provided that the commitments address the concerns identified to the undertaking in the preliminary assessment.
CaseT-76/14 Morningstar, Inc. v Commission
Case C-441/07 P Commission v Alrosa Company Limited
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