Antitrust Liability in the Context of Online Platforms. Case Comment to the Preliminary Ruling of the Court of Justice of 21 January 2016 ‘Eturas’ UAB v Lietuvos Respublikos konkurencijos taryba (Case C-74/14)

Abstract

In its judgment of 21 January 2016 in Case C-74/14 (hereinafter, judgment), the Court of Justice (hereinafter, CJ) responded to a preliminary question submitted by the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania. The latter asked whether the mere dispatch of an email relating to the maximum level of rebates may constitute sufficient evidence to establish that its addressees can be found liable for illegal concerted practices within the meaning of Article 101(1) TFEU. The CJ judgment raises novel issues specific to antitrust enforcement in e-commerce in two areas: (i) can users of a third party online booking platform be found liable for an anti-competitive practice purely on the basis of receiving unprompted email messages, even if they were not aware of their content, and (ii) what steps should they take in order to distance themselves from anti-competitive actions in an e-commerce environment.