22.8.2016

Official Journal of the European Union

C 305/15

(Case C-295/16)

(2016/C 305/21)

Language of the case: Spanish

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Europamur Alimentación, S.A.

Defendant: Dirección General de Consumo, Comercio y Artesanía de la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia

Questions referred

1.Must Directive 2005/29/EC (1) on unfair commercial practices be interpreted as precluding a provision of national law, such as Article 14 of Law 7/1996 of 15 January 1996 regulating retail commerce (Ley 7/1996, de 15 de enero, de Ordenación del Comercio Minorista), which is stricter than the directive in question in that it contains an initial prohibition, which also covers wholesalers, on selling at a loss, treating such a practice as an infringement of administrative law and therefore imposing a penalty in respect of it, account being taken of the fact that, in addition to regulating the market, the Spanish legislation is intended to protect the interests of consumers?

2.Must Directive 2005/29/EC be interpreted as precluding Article 14 of Law 7/1996 even though that provision of national law permits selling at a loss to be excluded from the general prohibition where (i) the infringing party shows that the objective of selling at a loss was to match the prices of one or more competitors with the ability materially to affect that party’s sales or (ii) the sale involves perishable goods which will shortly be unfit for use?

Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450/EEC, Directives 97/7/EC, 98/27/EC and 2002/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ 2005 L 149, p. 22).

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(1) Language of the case: Spanish.