Judgment of the General Court Third Chamber, Extended Composition, 22 March 2023, B&Bartoni v EUIPO – Hypertherm Electrode to insert into a torch, T-617/21

• Date: 22 March 2023
• Year: 2023

11

declaration of nullity under Article 101(2) TFEU and/or actions for damages for infringement of

competition law.

Thus, in the absence of EU rules governing the matter that are applicable ratione materiae or ratione

temporis, it is for the domestic legal system of each Member State to lay down the detailed rules

governing the exercise of the right to seek a declaration of nullity of agreements or decisions under

Article 102 TFEU and of the right to compensation for the harm resulting from an infringement of

Article 101 TFEU, including those on the binding effects of final decisions of national competition

authorities in the context of such types of action, provided that the principles of equivalence and

effectiveness are observed.

The enforcement of claims for damages due to breaches of Article 101 TFEU would be rendered

excessively difficult if the final decisions of a competition authority were to be accorded no effect

whatsoever in civil actions for damages or in actions seeking to establish the invalidity of agreements

or decisions prohibited under that article, brought following such final decisions and before a court of

the same Member State as that in which that authority exercises its jurisdiction.

Thus, the Court considers that, in order to guarantee the effective application of Articles 101 and 102

TFEU in the context of those actions, the existence of an infringement of EU competition law found in

such decisions must be deemed to be established by the applicant until proof to the contrary is

adduced, thereby shifting the burden of proof defined by Article 2 of Regulation No 1/2003 to the

defendant, provided that the nature and the material, personal, temporal and territorial scope of the

alleged infringements that are the subject matter of the actions brought by the applicant correspond

to those of the infringement found in those decisions. However, where the correspondence thus

required is only partial, the findings in such a decision constitute an indication of the existence of the

facts to which those findings relate.

In the third and last place, the Court considers that, provided that an applicant succeeds in

establishing the existence of an infringement of Article 101 TFEU which is the subject of its action for a

declaration of nullity brought under Article 101(2) TFEU and of its action for damages in respect of

that infringement, it is for the national court to draw all the consequences from it and infer, inter alia,

the automatic nullity of all those contractual provisions which are incompatible with Article 101(1)

TFEU.

V. JUDGMENTS PREVIOUSLY DELIVERED

1. APPROXIMATION OF LAWS

1.1. COMMUNITY DESIGNS

Judgment of the General Court (Third Chamber, Extended Composition), 22 March 2023,

B&Bartoni v EUIPO – Hypertherm (Electrode to insert into a torch), T-617/21

Link to the full text of the judgment

Community design – Invalidity proceedings – Registered Community design representing an electrode to

insert into a torch – Ground for invalidity – Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 – Component part of a

complex product

Hypertherm, Inc. is the holder of a Community design representing an electrode to insert into a torch

forming part of a plasma cutting system. The company B&Bartoni spol. s r.o filed an application for a

declaration of invalidity against that Community design with the European Union Intellectual Property

Office (EUIPO) on the ground that it did not meet the requirements for protection of Community