The EU General Court dismisses a damages action for €1.74B brought by a courier delivery services company against the Commission for the losses and costs resulting from the annulment of a merger prohibition decision (UPS / TNT)

On 23 February 2022, the General Court dismissed UPS's damages action for EUR 1.74 billion against the European Commission for the losses and costs resulting from the annulment of the UPS/TNT merger prohibition decision. Key takeaways Annulment of a merger prohibition decision will not necessarily lead to an award of damages to the notifying parties. The General Court confirmed that failure to communicate to UPS the final version of an econometric model amounted to a "sufficiently serious breach" of UPS's rights of defence. To establish a causal link between the damages claimed and the breach of rights, the burden is on the claimant to prove that, absent the breach, the transaction would have been cleared by the Commission. Transaction break fees are not considered to be