Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2002:242
Date: 2002-10-08
Language of the case: French;Portuguese;Spanish
Court formation: Second Chamber, Extended Composition
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Competition;Agreements, decisions and concerted practices
Concepts: Conditions for exemption;Agreements that are incompatible with the common market: examples
Procedure: Action for annulment - successful
Origin: Spain;France;Portugal

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Competition — Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Prohibition — 
Exemption — Conditions — Assessment made by the Commission without pre­
viously defining exactly the relevant product market and geographic market — 
Narrowest possible market taken into account — No effect on assessment made — 
Whether permissible 
(Art. 81(3) EC) 
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SUMMARY — JOINED CASES T-185/00, T-216/00, T-299/00 AND T-300/00 
2. Competition — Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Prejudicial to 
competition — Professional association of radio and television organisations — 
Agreements organising the joint acquisition of exclusive television rights to sporting 
events — Competition between members and between members and non-member 
undertakings restricted 
(Art. 81(1) and (3)(b) EC) 
3. Competition — Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Prohibition — 
Exemption — Conditions — Not possible to eliminate competition in respect of a 
substantial part of the products in question — Professional association of radio and 
television organisations — Agreements organising the joint acquisition of exclusive 
television rights to sporting events — Very limited access for non-member undertak­
ings to the rights acquired by the association — Agreements eliminating compe­
tition — Exemption excluded 
(Art. 81(3)(b)EC) 
1. It cannot properly be complained that 
the Commission has failed to define 
exactly the product market or geo­
graphic markets concerned when 
examining whether a set of agreements, 
such as that established by the Euro­
pean Broadcasting Union (EBU), a 
professional association of radio and 
television organisations, on the acquisi­
tion and exploitation of rights to 
broadcast sporting events could be 
granted an exemption under Arti­
cle 81(3) EC, if it has taken as the 
basis for its examination the narrowest 
possible market, in this instance the 
market consisting of certain major 
international sporting events, such as 
the Olympic Games, and if that 
approach has not, in the specific case, 
affected its analysis of whether the 
condition for the grant of an exemption 
laid down in Article 81(3)(b) EC has 
been satisfied. 
(see para. 57) 
2. The television programme exchange 
system set up by the European Broad­
casting Union (EBU), a professional 
association of radio and television 
organisations, which provides for the 
joint acquisition of television rights to 
sporting events, comprises two types of 
restrictions on competition. First, the 
joint acquisition of such rights, their 
sharing and the exchange of signal 
II - 3806 
M6 AND OTHERS v COMMISSION 
restricts or even eliminates competition 
among EBU members which are com­
petitors on both the upstream market, 
for the acquisition of rights, and the 
downstream market, for televised 
transmission of sporting events. In 
addition, that system gives rise to 
restrictions on competition as regards 
third parties since those rights are 
generally sold on an exclusive basis, 
so that EBU non-members would not in 
principle have access to them. While it 
is true that the purchase of televised 
transmission rights for an event is not 
in itself a restriction on competition 
likely to fall under Article 81(1) EC 
and may be justified by particular 
characteristics of the product and the 
market in question, the exercise of 
those rights in a specific legal and 
economic context may none the less 
lead to such a restriction. 
(see paras 63-64) 
3. The set of agreements established by 
the European Broadcasting Union 
(EBU), a professional association of 
radio and television organisations, on 
the acquisition and exploitation of 
televised broadcasts of sporting events 
does not, for the purposes of 
Article 81(3)(b) EC, make it possible 
to avoid the elimination of competition 
and therefore cannot be exempted 
under that provision because the sub­
licensing scheme included in those 
agreements does not guarantee the 
competing undertakings sufficient 
access to the exclusive transmission 
rights jointly acquired by the associ­
ation undertakings. Apart from a few 
exceptions, the scheme does not enable 
third parties to obtain sub-licences for 
the live broadcast of unused rights and, 
in reality, grants them access only to 
the acquisition of sub-licences to trans­
mit roundups of competitions under 
extremely restrictive conditions. 
(see paras 83, 85) 
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