Brussels, 01/07/2010 (Agence Europe) - In its decision made on Case T-321/05, the European Court of Justice on Thursday 1 July essentially confirmed the decision made by the Commission on 15 June 2005 to fine the pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca Plc. (UK) and its Swedish subsidiary AstraZeneca AB a total amount of €60 million (€46 + €14 million) for the abuse of its dominant position and preventing the marketing of generic products replicating the anti-ulcer drug “Losec”. Nonetheless, it reduced the amount of these fines to €52.5 (€40.25 + €12.25) because it considered that the Commission had not backed up all of its allegations.
That Commission imposed these fines because it observed that in an effort to prevent or delay the entry onto the market of generic drugs that would compete with “Losec”, AstraZeneca deliberately made misleading declarations to the patent offices in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and United Kingdom and had withdrawn marketing authorisations for “Losec” in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The ECJ, however, quashed the Commission decision on this latter point and claimed that the Commission had not proved that the withdrawals of authorisations for the marketing of “Losec” by AstraZeneca could prevent other import of this drug to Denmark and Norway and, a fortiori, that the halt or sharp decline in parallel imports of Losec in these two countries was due to the behaviour of AstraZeneca. (F.G./transl.fl)