Request for a preliminary ruling from the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (Spain) lodged on 13 June 2019 — Asociación Estatal de Empresas Operadoras Portuarias (ASOPORT)

(Case C-462/19)

Language of the case: Spanish

Referring court

Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia

Parties to the main proceedings

Interested party, in its status as person concerned: Asociación Estatal de Empresas Operadoras Portuarias (ASOPORT)

Other parties: Asociación Nacional de Empresas Estibadoras y Consignatarios de Buques (ANESCO), Comisiones Obreras, Coordinadora Estatal de Trabajadores del Mar (CETM), Confederación Intersindical Galega, Eusko Langileen Alkartasuna, Langile Abertzaleen Batzordeak, Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT)

Questions referred

Must Article 101 TFEU be interpreted as meaning that agreements between operators and employee representatives, even when termed collective agreements, are prohibited where they (i) stipulate that undertakings which leave a Sociedad Anónima de Gestión de Estibadores Portuarios [(Stevedore Management Company; ‘SAGEP’)] must accept the transfer of SAGEP workers and (ii) establish the method by which the transfer takes place?

If the answer to the previous question is in the affirmative, must Article 101 TFEU be interpreted as precluding provisions of national law such as those in Royal Decree-Law 9/2019 in so far as they provide the basis for the collective agreements that impose a particular means of transferring employees that extends beyond employment matters and produces a harmonisation of commercial conditions?

If the aforesaid legal provisions are held to be contrary to EU law, must the case-law of the Court of Justice on the primacy of EU law and its consequences, as established in the Simmenthal ¹ and Fratelli Costanzo ² judgments among others, be interpreted as requiring a public law body such as the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia [(National Commission on Markets and Competition; ‘CNMC’)] to disapply those provisions of national law contrary to Article 101 TFEU?

If the answer to the first question is in the affirmative, must Article 101 TFEU and Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty, ³ and the duty to ensure the effectiveness of EU laws, be interpreted as requiring an administrative authority such as the CNMC to impose fines and periodic penalty payments on those entities that behave in the way described?

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¹ Judgment of 15 December 1976, Simmenthal (35/76, EU:C:1976:180).

² Judgment of 22 June 1989, Costanzo (103/88, EU:C:1989:256).

³ OJ 2003 L 1, p. 1.