In its judgment of Thursday 21 December in Case C-297/22 P, the Court dismissed UPS’s claim for damages following the European Commission’s prohibition, on 14 January 2013, of a proposed merger between United Parcel Service (UPS) and TNT, which specialise in the express distribution of parcels (see EUROPE 12897/26).
UPS brought an action before the General Court for annulment of the Commission’s decision and announced that it was abandoning the proposed merger. In addition, the Commission authorised a merger between TNT and FedEx, a competitor of UPS.
At the end of 2017, UPS brought an action for damages against the Commission. The company sought to obtain compensation for the economic loss allegedly suffered as a result of the contested decision, by obtaining compensation plus interest for the loss suffered.
According to UPS, these damages covered the costs of participating in the merger control procedure between FedEx and TNT, the payment to TNT of a contractual termination fee following the termination of the merger agreement and the loss of profit resulting from the impossibility of implementing the merger agreement.
The General Court dismissed this appeal in February 2022.
UPS then lodged an appeal on 3 May 2022. The Group asked the Court to set aside the General Court’s 2022 judgment and award the compensation claimed and, in the alternative, to refer the case back to the General Court.
The Court dismissed UPS’s appeal, as none of the six grounds put forward by UPS was upheld.
It took the view that by challenging the circumstances of the termination of the agreement with TNT, UPS was not calling into question the legal arguments of the General Court, but its assessment of the facts.
In addition, the Court held that the negative consequences of contractual commitments freely entered into by UPS and TNT could not be regarded as the determining cause of the loss allegedly suffered by reason of the unlawfulness of the Commission’s decision.
Finally, the Court found that the General Court had established that there was no causal link between the three alleged damage.
Link to the judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/a87 (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)