Simon Troch, Maria Turbasa, The EU Court of Justice rules on the applicability of contractual jurisdiction clauses in the context of abuse of a dominant position, ruling that some competition law violations are more contract related than others (Apple / MJA)

With its judgment the European Court of Justice (‘ECJ’) confirms its previous case law indicating that the criterium to determine whether a competition law violation is covered by a contractual jurisdiction clause is the existence of a ‘contractual link’, adding that this is the case even when such clause does not explicitly refer to disputes relating to liability resulting from a competition law infringement. Interesting is that that the ECJ further clarifies that such ‘contractual link’ is more likely to be present in case of a violation of article 102 TFEU rather than in case of a violation of article 101 TFEU. Unfortunately, the ECJ’s reasoning for making this distinction is limited to stating that “the abuse of a dominant position can materialise in contractual relations that an undertaking in a dominant position establishes and by means of contractual terms”.