2008 and 2009 EU Competition Law and Sector-Specific Regulatory Case Law Developments with a Nexus to Poland

Poland joined the EU on 1 May 2004. The initial “honeymoon” period has,generally speaking, been a happy one and there have been few prominent cases decided at the administrative level (i.e. the European Commission) or broughtbefore the judiciary (i.e. the European Community Courts). That said, usuallyfollowing notifications by Polish authorities, the Commission has taken a numberof important individual decisions in the field of State aid (including the misuse ofaid decisions in the steel sector and the Power Purchase Agreements decision),which have led to litigation before the Community Courts. The Commission’sdecisions in Polish cases have already provided important clarifications (e.g.regarding the application of alternative State aid exemptions to pre-accessionrestructuring cases in Technologie Buczek) and raised significant new legalissues (e.g. the application of the EC State aid rules to pre-accession aid underProtocol No. 8 of the Accession Treaty in Huta Częstochowa or an agent’s actionstriggering pre-accession cartel liability in BR/ESBR). Pending actions in thesecases can and lead to further case law developments, especially with regard toProtocol No. 8 the Commission’s Rescue & Restructuring Guidelines.