Card Trick: The Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Budapest Bank Case (C-228/18)

Abstract

The preliminary ruling initiated by the Hungarian Supreme Court before the European Court of Justice  raised one of the most controversial key issues of  European competition law: when can a conduct be  considered restrictive of competition by object. The  purpose of this study is to review the main findings  of the judgment of the CJEU after briefly outlining the background to the preliminary ruling. It then sets out how the judgment fits into European decision-making practice on the establishment of an anti-competitive object and how and to what extent it further develops it. The study concludes with findings on the possible consequences of the judgment for the enforcement of European competition law. The main conclusion of the study is that the judgment is  in line with the Cartes Bancaires line of case law, but  it also further develops that line of case law in a way that it reinforces the exceptional nature of finding a  conduct to be restrictive of competition by object. According to the author, the narrowing of the discretion of competition authorities due to the  judgment contributes to the fact that they will  presumably be forced to reinterpret their tools and  find new tools to preserve the effectiveness of  competition intervention in the analysis of new types  of competition restrictions.