EU General Court Judgment in Case T-136/19 Bulgarian Energy Holding and others v EU Commission

Wednesday 25th October 2023

General Court

Judgment in Case T-136/19 Bulgarian Energy Holding and others v Commission

(Competition)

Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH), a company wholly owned by the Bulgarian state, has several subsidiaries operating in the energy sector, including Bulgargaz and Bulgartransgaz. The former is the country’s public gas supplier. Bulgartransgaz manages and operates the gas transmission network. It also controls the country’s only natural gas storage facility, located underground at Chiren.

Bulgaria’s gas supply depended almost entirely on imports from Russia. It was transported via Ukraine and then Romania via three gas pipelines: Romanian transit pipelines 1, 2 and 3, administered by Transgaz, the Romanian gas transmission system operator.

Since 1974, an intergovernmental agreement between Bulgaria and Romania has guaranteed the conditions for operating Romanian gas pipeline 1. In 2005, a new agreement was concluded under which Bulgargaz was granted exclusive use of the pipeline until the end of 2011, before being extended until 2016. In return, the Bulgarian company paid Transgaz a fixed annual fee, independent of the capacity actually used.

In 2010, Overgas, a player in the Bulgarian gas supply market, lodged a complaint with the European Commission against BEH and its two subsidiaries for infringing EU competition rules. Following in-depth investigations, in a decision dated 17 December 2018 , the Commission found that these companies had abused their dominant position on the market for the supply of gas in Bulgaria. Between 30 July 2010 and 1 January 2015, the infringement consisted of a refusal to grant third parties access to several gas infrastructures. As a result, it imposed a fine of approximately € 77 million on the companies concerned.

Following this decision, BEH and its subsidiaries brought an action before the General Court of the European Union seeking annulment of the decision or, failing that, a reduction of the fine.

Background Documents T-136/19