Abuse of Dominant Position - Essential Facilities Doctrine

The Court of First Instance issued a judgement in the Coe Clerici Logistics SpA v. Commission case on 17 June 2003 (case T-52/00). This judgement was issued in connection with the issue of refusal of access to the so-called ‘essential facilities’ and the consequent abuse of dominant position in the sense of Article 82 (ex Article 86) of the EC Treaty.

Although this judgement does not bring any new aspects regarding definition of the essential facilities and refers to standing decision-making practices (see in particular judgement of the European Court of Justice No. C-7/97 dated on 26 November 1993 in case Bronner), it is interesting in the way that procedural practices are dealt with therein. Particularly interesting was the issue of a private entity’s right to file an action against a decision in which the Commission refused to deal with alleged abuse of dominant position as referred to in Article 82 in conjunction with Article 86 (3) of the EC Treaty on European Community, i.e. in the case when the alleged abuse of dominant position was claimed to have resulted from intervention by a public authority (in this particular example, the consequence of a Ministerial Decree).