18.5.2013

Official Journal of the European Union

C 141/3

(Case C-32/11) (<span class="super">1</span>)

(Competition - Article 101(1) TFEU - Application of similar national regulations - Jurisdiction of the Court - Bilateral agreements between an insurance company and car repairers relating to hourly repair charges - Charges paid depending on the number of insurance contracts concluded for the insurance company by those repairers in their capacity as brokers - Concept of ‘agreement having as its object the restriction of competition’)

2013/C 141/03

Language of the case: Hungarian

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicants: Allianz Hungária Biztosító Zrt, Generali-Providencia Biztosító Zrt, Gépjármű Márkakereskedők Országos Szövetsége, Magyar Peugeot Márkakereskedők Biztosítási Alkusz Kft, Paragon-Alkusz Zrt., the legal successor of the Magyar Opelkereskedők Bróker Kft

Defendant: Gazdasági Versenyhivatal

Re:

Request for a preliminary ruling — Magyar Köztársaság Legfelsőbb Bírósága — Interpretation of Article 101(1) TFEU — Bilateral agreements between an insurance company and certain car repairers under which the hourly repair charge paid by the insurance company to those repairers depends on the number and scale of insurance policies taken out with the insurance company by the repairer, as the insurance broker for the insurance company in question — National legislation relying on a concept analogous to a concept of Union law — Concept of ‘agreements which have as their object the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition’

Operative part of the judgment

Article 101(1) TFEU must be interpreted as meaning that agreements whereby car insurance companies come to bilateral arrangements, either with car dealers acting as car repair shops or with an association representing those dealers, concerning the hourly charge to be paid by the insurance company for repairs to vehicles insured by it, stipulating that that charge depends, inter alia, on the number and percentage of insurance contracts that the dealer has sold as intermediary for that company, can be considered to be a restriction of competition ‘by object’ within the meaning of that provision, where, following a concrete and individual examination of the wording and aim of those agreements and of the economic and legal context of which they form a part, it is apparent that they are, by their very nature, injurious to the proper functioning of normal competition on one of the two markets concerned.

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(<span class="super">1</span>) OJ C 145, 14.5.2011.