Abuse of dominance investigation did not violate human rights

Abuse of dominance investigation did not violate human rights

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has rejected a claim by an oil refinery that it was denied the right to a fair trial after the Lithuanian Competition Council reopened an investigation into the company for abuse of dominance after the limitation period had expired.

The investigation concerned Lithuania’s fuel market between 2002 and 2004.

Lithuania’s competition authority fined Orlen Lietuva 32 million litas (EUR 9.3 million) in 2005.  This was annulled by the Regional Court and confirmed by the Supreme Administrative Court because the authority defined the relevant market incorrectly.

Orlen Lietuva claimed that any reinvestigation was time barred and after various national appeals the oil refinery filed a complaint to the ECtHR claiming that the national court had infringed the principle of legal certainty by overturning the previous infringement decision but allowing a new probe.

The ECtHR held that the national court did not violate the principles of legal certainty by applying the three-year statute of limitations to a factually similar other case and not the Orlen Lietuva case.  It found that the Lithuanian court’s decision was not arbitrary because it provided sufficient reasoning.

In particular, the Orlen Lietuva case involved the application of EU law and the Court found that the principle of effectiveness means that a court should not apply national procedural rules that would render the application of EU law “excessively difficult or impossible in practice”.

CASE OF ORLEN LIETUVA LTD. v. LITHUANIA (Application no. 45849/13)