Action brought on 13 June 2019 — Groupe Canal + v Commission

(Case T-358/19)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Groupe Canal + (Issy-les-Moulineaux, France) (represented by: P. Wilhelm, P. Gassenbach and O. de Juvigny, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

declare the action admissible and well-founded;

annul, on the basis of Article 263 TFEU, the Commission Decision of 7 March 2019 in Case AT.40023 so far as concerns the French market and the existing and future contracts of Groupe Canal +;

order the Commission to pay all of the costs incurred by the company Groupe Canal +.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on three pleas in law.

1.    First plea in law, alleging misuse of powers by the Commission in so far as the commitments, which it rendered binding, for the purposes of ending geo-blocking in the field of cinema interfere with the legislative reforms recently adopted by the EU legislature.

2.    Second plea in law, alleging that the Commission made a manifest error of assessment in relation to Article 101(1) TFEU in so far as it found that the commitments proposed by NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros and Sky do not affect the cultural diversity and more generally the financing and exploitation of films in the European Economic Area.

3.    Third plea in law, alleging infringement of the principle of proportionality in that the Commission made binding a number of commitments which were manifestly disproportionate to the competition concerns raised and which infringed the interests of third parties.

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