Official Journal of the European Union

C 490/7

(Case C-882/19) (*)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Competition - Compensation for harm caused by a practice prohibited under Article 101(1) TFEU - Determination of the undertakings liable to provide compensation - Action for compensation directed against the subsidiary of a parent company and brought following a decision finding only that the parent company participated in a cartel - Concept of an ‘undertaking’ - Concept of ‘economic unit’)

(2021/C 490/04)

Language of the case: Spanish

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Sumal SL

Defendant: Mercedes Benz Trucks España SL

Operative part of the judgment

1.Article 101(1) TFEU must be interpreted as meaning that the victim of an anticompetitive practice by an undertaking may bring an action for damages, without distinction, either against a parent company who has been punished by the Commission for that practice in a decision or against a subsidiary of that company which is not referred to in that decision, where those companies together constitute a single economic unit. The subsidiary company concerned must be able effectively to rely on its rights of the defence in order to show that it does not belong to that undertaking and, where no decision has been adopted by the Commission under Article 101 TFEU, it is also entitled to dispute the very existence of the conduct alleged to amount to an infringement;

2.Article 101(1) TFEU must be interpreted as precluding a national law which provides for the possibility of imputing liability for one company’s conduct to another company only in circumstances where the second company controls the first company.

(*) Language of the case: Spanish.