Brussels, 13/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 8 May, the Court of Justice of the EU (case C-508/11 P) upheld the the ruling of the General Court of 13 July 2011 handing down a fine of €181.50 million to the Italian company ENI SpA for its participation, together with certain of its subsidiaries, in a cartel on the butadiene rubber (BR) and styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) markets. The General Court did not accept the accusation of repeat offences against ENI SpA and its wholly-owned subsidiary Polimeri Europa SpA (which has since become Versalis SpA) and reduced to €181.5 million the fine imposed on the company, which had been increased by 50% (to a total of €272.25 million). This fine had been handed down to the company by the European Commission in 2006 for its involvement, along with other major petrochemical companies, in this cartel on the BR and SBR markets consisting of setting prices, sharing out clients and exchanging sensitive information. ENI appealed to have this ruling overturned. It argued that the General Court should have annulled the decision in that the Commision laid the blame on it for the infringement committed by Syndial SpA (formerly EniChem SpA, a subsidiary of ENI) and/or Versalis. In its ruling, the Court pointed out that, in competition matters, the conduct of a wholly-owned or nearly wholly-owned subsidiary can be imputed to the parent company, particularly if the subsidiary, despite having a separate legal personality, does not autonomously determine its conduct on the market, but applies the instructions of the parent company. The Commission was legitimately able to assume that ENI exercised decisive levels of influence over its subsidiaries active in the sectors of BR and SBR (EniChem Elastomeri, EniChem Spa and Versalis) as it directly or indirectly owned 99.97% of the capital of these companies. It was, therefore, able to fine ENI without having to establish its direct involvement in the infringement. In order to overturn this presumption, ENI should have proven to the General Court that Versalis was able to act independently at an operational and financial level, which it failed to do. The Court also rejected ENI's other argument, that it is not responsible for the infringement committed by the subsidiaries by virtue of the limited liability of capital companies and the separate legal personality of the companies. In fact, under EU competition law, the notion of company denotes an economic entity - even if it is made up of more than one legal or natural persons - which is responsible for infringements against the competition rules in accordance with the principle of personal liability. (FG/transl.fl)