Chillin'Competition

In searching through rejected complaints on the Commission’s website, I excavated a decision which, once more, witnesses the Commission’s reluctance to uphold  excessive pricing claims.

In AIA SA and Olympic Fuel Company SA, the complainants alleged that the Athens international airport (Spata) imposed, amongst others, excessive taxes on passengers, charges on air companies, parking fees on travellers, etc.

The Commission bluntly dismissed the complaint, alluding to the burdensome nature of investigations into alleged excessive pricing strategies ( §43 “the efforts required in the present case to establish with certainty the existence of the alleged infringements would be disproportionate … in light of the significance of these alleged infringements as regards the functioning of the relevant market“). Also, the Commission’s decision illustrates the challenges of finding appropriate benchmarks with a view to perform price comparisons accross countries/services (See notably, §§84-89).

Source: Case COMP/D3/38469, 2 May 2005.

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