The EU General Court declares inadmissible an action seeking to block a complex acquisition of assets by a German energy utility of a French State-backed rival on the grounds that the third party which brought the action was not sufficiently active during the merger procedure (enercity / E.ON / RWE)

The action brought by the German municipal authority enercity against the approval by the Commission of the acquisition of generation assets of E.ON by RWE is inadmissible* The General Court provides clarification in that context of the novel question of the burden of proof so far as concerns the sending by the Commission of the questionnaire to conduct its market test In March 2018, the companies RWE AG and E.ON, both governed by German law, announced that they wanted to engage in a complex asset swap by means of three concentration operations. By the first operation, RWE, which is active across the whole supply chain of energy provision in several European countries, wished to acquire sole or joint control over certain generation assets of E.ON, an electricity provider which