Publication of the Opening of proceedings

Pursuant to Article 2 of Regulation 773/2004 the Commission may make the opening of proceedings public. The Commission's policy is to publish a standard notice (in EN) about the adoption of the decision to open proceedings on the website of DG Competition and issue a press release, unless such publication may harm the investigation (e.g. if unannounced inspections are envisaged. The parties subject to the investigation are informed orally or in writing of the opening of proceedings sufficiently in advance before the opening of proceedings is made public so as to enable them to prepare their own communication (in particular in relation to shareholders, the financial institutions and the press)) 1 .

More about Publication of the Opening of proceedings

The publication of the press release and of the website notice should take place after the notification of the decision of opening of proceedings. The case-team has to await the acknowledgement of receipt of the notification (DHL slip signed by the addressee(s) of the decision) and only thereafter inform the Spokesperson to trigger the communication as well as launch the publication on the DG COMP website within a time-period of 1 to 2 days depending on whether or not the addressee was aware of the intention of opening proceedings and could therefore prepare its own communication (in particular in relation to shareholders, the financial institutions and the press).

More about the Subject

See more details on how to insert the standard (word) document to be published on the website and on how to prepare the press release and standard Memo in the Module Publication.

Resources

References

Information about Publication of the Opening of proceedings in the Antitrust Manual of Procedures for the application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU (Internal DG Competition)

Notes

[Note 1] Notice on Antitrust Best Practices, paragraphs 20 and 21.

Publication of the Opening of proceedings

Publication of the Opening of proceedings