When the General Court of the European Union or the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) annuls or reduces a fine imposed on a company for infringing European competition rules, the European Commission must repay all or part of the amount of the fine paid provisionally, and also pay the company interest for the period between the date of provisional payment of the fine and the date of repayment, ruled the Court of Justice in a judgment delivered on Tuesday 11 June (case C-221/22 P).
The European Commission has appealed against the judgment of the General Court of the European Union approving the payment to Deutsche Telekom of interest on the amount of a fine unduly paid to the EU institution in the context of a competition case (case T-610/19 - see EUROPE 12872/20).
In its judgment, the Court confirms the judgment of the General Court. On the basis of well-established European case law, it notes that in the event of the retroactive cancellation or reduction by an EU court of a fine imposed by the Commission for infringement of the European competition rules, that institution must repay all or part of the amount of the fine paid provisionally, together with interest for the period between the date of provisional payment of the fine and the date of its repayment.
This obligation continues even if the financial returns on the Commission’s investment of the amount of the fine during this period have been zero or even negative.
According to the Court, the interest in this case is not ‘default’ or ‘late payment’ interest, but interest intended to compensate a company for the loss of use of the amount in question. Furthermore, it adds, the General Court was right to hold that the rate applicable to the interest which the Commission is required to pay to Deutsche Telekom is the European Central Bank’s refinancing rate plus 3.5 percentage points, in accordance with the Regulation (1268/2012) on the financial rules applicable to the EU budget.
See the judgment of the Court of Justice: https://aeur.eu/f/cly (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)