Ne bis in idem: The Court of Justice of the European Union clarifies the scope of the protection conferred by the ne bis in idem principle in the event of application of the competition rules by two national competition authorities following a leniency procedure (Nordzucker)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. On March 22, 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued two judgments with converging conclusions in two cases raising questions about the application of the ne bis in idem principle in the presence of conflicting decisions issued either by two national competition authorities with parallel jurisdiction, or by a competition authority and a sector-specific regulatory authority. These are the cases C-117/20 (bpost SA v. Belgian Competition Authority) and C-151/20 (Bundeswettbewerbsbehörde v Nordzucker AG). This was done in response to two references for a preliminary ruling made by the Brussels Court of Appeal and the Austrian Oberster