Restriction of competition by object: The Court of Justice of European Union recalls that the concept of the restriction of competition ‘by object’ should be given a strict interpretation and annuls the Tribunal’s decision in the French interbank network case (Groupement des Cartes Bancaires)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. In an important decision http://curia.europa.eu/juris/docume... delivered on 11 September 2014 in Case C-67/13 (CB v Commission), the Court of Justice of the European Union came to remind the Court of First Instance, in particularly firm terms, first, that the concept of restriction of competition 'by object' must be interpreted 'restrictively' (pt. 58), and on the other hand that the essential legal criterion for determining whether a coordination between undertakings involves such a restriction of competition 'by object' lies in the finding that such coordination has, in itself, a sufficient degree of harmfulness to competition (pt. 57). Finding in the