Information;Order — ECLI:EU:C:2024:1034
Date: 2024-12-12
Language of the case: Romanian
Court formation: Eighth Chamber
Subject matter: Competition;Principles, objectives and tasks of the Treaties;Fundamental rights;Charter of Fundamental Rights
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Romania

Summary C-149/24 – 1 
Case C-149/24 
Summary of the request for a preliminary ruling pursuant to Article 98(1) of 
the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice 
Date lodged: 
26 February 2024 
Referring court: 
Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție (Romania) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
23 November 2023 
Applicant for revision: 
United Media Services SRL 
Defendant: 
Consiliul Concurentei 
  
Subject of the action in the main proceedings 
Revision of a final decision, handed down in the field of competition law, 
regarding infringement of the principle of the primacy of EU law. 
Subject matter and legal basis of the request 
The referring court seeks, on the basis of Article 267 TFEU, guidance as to the 
interpretation of Article 4(3) TEU and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental 
Rights of the European Union in relation to the principles of equivalence, 
effectiveness and legal certainty. 
Question referred for a preliminary ruling 
Where a decision imposing a penalty against several undertakings for 
infringement of Article 101 TFEU is challenged separately by the undertakings 
subject to the penalty in separate proceedings, and, as a result of a question 
submitted for a preliminary ruling in the proceedings brought by one of the 
EN 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-149/24 
 
2  
undertakings in question, a binding judgment of the Court of Justice of the 
European Union is handed down with respect to a question of ordinary law (in the 
present case, how to determine the turnover that forms the basis for calculating the 
fines levied for anti-competitive conduct), can Article 4(3) TEU and Article 47 of 
the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, relating, primarily, to 
the principles of equivalence, effectiveness and legal certainty, be interpreted as 
precluding legislation under which the time limit within which an application for 
revision regarding infringement of EU law may be made runs, in all 
circumstances, from the date of notification of the decision subject to revision, so 
that it precludes the filing of an application for revision against a judgment 
rendered earlier in the proceedings of another undertaking among those subject to 
the penalty, even if that undertaking had itself applied to request the Court of 
Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling to the same effect, but its 
request was rejected by the court? 
Provisions of European Union law and case-law relied on 
Article 4(3) TEU 
Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the 
Charter’) 
Case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘the Court’), specifically 
the judgments of 10 November 2022, Zenith Media Communications, C-385/21, 
EU:C:2022:866; of 11 September 2019, Călin, C-676/17, EU:C:2019:700; of 
6 October 2015, Târșia, C-69/14, EU:C:2015:662; of 29 July 2019, Hochtief 
Solutions Magyarországi Fióktelepe, C-620/17, EU:C:2019:630; of 24 October 
2018, XC and Others, C-234/17, EU:C:2018:853; of 10 July 2014, Impresa 
Pizzarotti, C-213/13, EU:C:2014:2067; and of 27 June 2013, Agrokonsulting-04, 
C-93/12, EU:C:2013:432. 
Provisions of national law relied on 
Legea contenciosului administrativ nr. 554/2004 (Law No 554/2004 on 
administrative proceedings) (‘the Law on administrative proceedings’), Article 21, 
providing that if a judgment that has become final infringes the principle of 
primacy of EU law, this constitutes a ground for revision. Under the same article, 
the application for revision must be filed within one month from the date on which 
the final judgment is notified. 
Succinct presentation of the facts and procedure in the main proceedings 
1 By Decision No 49 of 3 December 2014, the Consiliul Concurenței (Competition 
Council, ‘the Competition Council’) held that, during the period between March 
and October 2012, 11 undertakings, including United Media Services SRL 
UNITED MEDIA SERVICES 
 
3 
(‘United Media’), had committed a single and continuous infringement of 
Article 101(1) TFEU by means of a cartel intended to eliminate competing media 
agencies from the market for the marketing of media services in Romania, 
conduct for which fines were imposed on those undertakings calculated in relation 
to the turnover achieved in 2013. United Media was fined an amount of 498 748 
Romanian lei (RON), equivalent to 2.40% of its total turnover achieved in 2013 
and recorded in its accounts. 
2 On 29 December 2014, that undertaking brought an action before the Curtea de 
Apel București (Bucharest Court of Appeal, Romania) seeking annulment of 
Decision No 49/2014 of the Competition Council in so far as it concerns United 
Media. In the alternative, it sought the partial annulment of the decision at issue, 
with a reduction of the amount of the fine imposed on it, and it argued that that 
fine, in essence, had been calculated using an incorrectly established turnover 
figure as the basis for calculation. 
3 The Curtea de Apel București (Bucharest Court of Appeal) dismissed the action as 
unfounded in a judgment of 11 June 2015, against which United Media appealed 
before the Înalta Curte de Casație și Justiție (High Court of Cassation and Justice, 
Romania; ‘the High Court of Cassation’). 
4 In the course of the appeal proceedings, United Media requested that the High 
Court of Cassation refer a question to the Court for a preliminary ruling 
concerning the method used to determine the turnover constituting the basis for 
calculating the fine imposed for infringement of Article 101 TFEU. The High 
Court of Cassation rejected that request for a reference to the Court, as it 
considered that the question referred for a preliminary ruling was not useful or 
relevant to the result of the case. 
5 United Media’s appeal against that judgment of the Curtea de Apel București 
(Bucharest Court of Appeal) was dismissed as unfounded by the High Court of 
Cassation by a decision of 16 November 2018. 
6 After ruling on that appeal, the Court, in its judgment of 10 November 2022 in 
Case C-385/21 Zenith Media Communications (‘the judgment in Zenith Media 
Communications’), held that: ‘Article 4(3) TEU and Article 101 TFEU must be 
interpreted as precluding national legislation or practice under which, for the 
purposes of calculating the fine imposed on an undertaking for infringement of 
Article 101 TFEU, the national competition authority is required, in all 
circumstances, to take into account the turnover of that undertaking as shown in 
its profit and loss account, without having the possibility of examining evidence 
put forward by that undertaking to show that that turnover does not reflect its real 
economic situation and that, consequently, another amount which reflects that 
situation should be taken into account as turnover, provided that that evidence is 
precise and documented’. 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-149/24 
 
4  
7 Case C-385/21 concerned a reference for a preliminary ruling brought by the High 
Court of Cassation in proceedings in which the same Competition Council 
Decision No 49/2014 had been challenged by another undertaking subject to a 
penalty together with United Media, namely Zenith Media Communications 
(‘Zenith Media’). 
8 In that context, United Media challenged the decision on the appeal by way of an 
application for revision, lodged with the High Court of Cassation on 12 December 
2022, in which it sought a partial amendment of the decision on the appeal as far 
as the solution concerning the method of calculating the fine in relation to the 
undertaking’s actual turnover is concerned. 
9 The application for revision was based on Article 21 of the Law on administrative 
proceedings, which allows appeals against judgments that have become final in 
breach of the principle of primacy of EU law. 
10 In its reasoning, the applicant for revision relied on the judgment in Zenith Media 
Communications and stated that although, from a formal point of view, the 
proceedings in which the request by Zenith Media that a reference for a 
preliminary ruling be made by the Court was granted and the present proceedings 
are separate, from a substantive point of view they are one and the same case, in 
which Decision No 49/2014 of the Competition Council is being challenged. 
Consequently, that applicant argued that, since the Court had delivered a judgment 
in which it adopted a binding interpretation of EU law, all other subjects of law in 
the respective case that are in identical situations must be entitled to bring an 
application for revision on the basis of Article 21 of the Law on administrative 
proceedings. 
11 In its defence, the Competition Council raised the objection that the application 
for revision was made out of time, since it was submitted after the expiry of the 
period of one month from the date of notification of the final judgment. 
The essential arguments of the parties in the main proceedings 
12 The applicant for revision, United Media, begins by asserting that the national 
legislation provides for a limitation period of one month from the date of 
notification of the final judgment within which the party concerned may bring an 
application for revision based on infringement of the principle of primacy of EU 
law. Therefore, under national law, if the decision of the Court establishing 
infringement of EU law in another case is delivered after a judgment has become 
final and after the expiry of the one-month time limit for revision, then the party 
concerned in the latter case may no longer rely on the Court’s binding 
interpretation in order to obtain revision of the judgment delivered in breach of 
EU law. 
13 According to the applicant for revision, the automatic application of the provisions 
of the Law on administrative proceedings, which would result in its application 
UNITED MEDIA SERVICES 
 
5 
for revision being rejected as out of time, would infringe the principle of 
effectiveness, since the judgment in Zenith Media Communications, by which the 
method of calculating turnover was determined, was delivered after the expiry of 
the period of one month from the date on which it was notified of the decision that 
is the subject of the present application for revision. 
14 However, even if the main proceedings giving rise to the judgment in Zenith 
Media Communications were closely and inextricably linked to the present 
proceedings, the applicant for revision could not benefit from the effects of that 
judgment by reason of the one-month limitation period laid down by national law, 
which, in its view, would entail a breach of the principle of effectiveness. 
15 The applicant for revision further submits that, although there was a single 
decision imposing a penalty issued by the Competition Council, in respect of the 
same anti-competitive conduct and upholding the same evidence and arguments 
on the merits, the actions for annulment brought by the media agencies subject to 
that penalty were assigned to separate panels of judges, which issued divergent 
rulings on the requests for referral to the Court of Justice of the question regarding 
the method used to determine the turnover relevant for the application of the 
penalty. Such non-uniform case-law creates a climate of legal uncertainty and 
constitutes unjustified discrimination between media agencies. 
16 The defendant Competition Council sought rejection of the application for a 
request for a preliminary ruling to be made to the Court. 
Succinct presentation of the reasoning in the request for a preliminary ruling 
17 According to the referring court, the revision procedure laid down in Article 21 of 
the Law on administrative proceedings was conceived as a last domestic remedy 
in order to ensure primacy of EU law and to prevent any further proceedings for 
compensation for damage caused by infringement of that law. 
18 Due to the lack of clarity of the initial wording, but also due to legislative events 
occurring since its entry into force, this article has repeatedly been the subject of 
decisions by the Curtea Constituțională a României (Constitutional Court of 
Romania; ‘the Constitutional Court’) and the High Court of Cassation. The Court 
also examined the conformity of that provision with EU law in Târșia, C-69/14, 
and Călin, C-676/17. 
19 By Decision No 45/2016, published in the Monitorul Oficial al României (Official 
Gazette of Romania) No 386 of 23 May 2017, the High Court of Cassation 
declared that the revision procedure governed by Article 21 of the Law on 
administrative proceedings is admissible on the basis of decisions of the Court, 
regardless of when they were delivered and whether, in the main proceedings, the 
provisions of EU law infringed by the judgment revision of which is sought were 
relied on, and that the time limit within which an application for revision must be 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-149/24 
 
6  
submitted is one month and runs from the date of notification of the final 
judgment subject to revision. 
20 Subsequently, in 2018, the time limit of one month from the date of notification of 
the final judgment was expressly stipulated in the Law on administrative 
proceedings. 
21 With regard to the time limit for bringing an application for revision, the Court, in 
its judgment of 11 September 2019, Călin, C-676/17 (‘the judgment in Călin’), 
held as follows: 
‘1. EU law, in particular the principles of equivalence and effectiveness, must 
be interpreted as not precluding, in principle, a national provision, as interpreted 
by a judgment of a national court, providing for a limitation period of one month 
for the submission of a request for revision of a final judicial decision handed 
down in breach of EU law, which runs from the date of notification of the decision 
in respect of which revision is sought. 
2. However, the principle of effectiveness, in conjunction with the principle of 
legal certainty, must be interpreted as precluding, in circumstances such as those 
at issue in the main proceedings, the application by a national court of a one-
month limitation period for the submission of a request for revision of a final 
judicial decision when, at the time that request for revision is made, the judgment 
introducing that limitation period has not yet been published in the Monitorul 
Oficial al României’. 
22 Therefore, according to the referring court, a revision could also be sought on the 
basis of a decision delivered by the Court after the close of the proceedings before 
the national court, provided that the period of one month from the date of 
notification of the judgment subject to the application for revision has not lapsed. 
Contrary to the claim asserted by the applicant for revision, that one-month time 
limit would be fully applicable in the present proceedings, since Decision 
No 45/2016 of the High Court of Cassation was published in the Monitorul Oficial 
before the application for revision was submitted. 
23 Furthermore, the referring court points out that, in the grounds of the judgment in 
Călin, the Court noted that, if the applicable domestic rules of procedure provide 
for the possibility, under certain conditions, for a national court to go back on a 
decision having the authority of res judicata in order to render the situation 
compatible with national law, that possibility must prevail if those conditions are 
met, in accordance with the principles of equivalence and effectiveness, so that the 
situation at issue is brought back into line with EU law. According to the principle 
of equivalence, the detailed procedural rules governing actions for safeguarding 
an individual’s rights under EU law must be no less favourable than those 
governing similar domestic actions. 
24 The referring court emphasises that, in Romanian law, the revision procedure 
governed by the Law on administrative proceedings is similar to that provided for 
UNITED MEDIA SERVICES 
 
7 
by the Codul de procedură civilă (Code of Civil Procedure), which provides for 
the possibility for a judgment to be revoked when, after it has become final, the 
Constitutional Court has ruled on the objection of unconstitutionality raised in the 
case in question and has declared the provision that was the subject of that 
objection to be unconstitutional. 
25 That form of revision may be requested within a period of three months from the 
date of publication in the Monitorul Oficială of the decision of the Constitutional 
Court declaring that a provision of national law is unconstitutional, whereas a 
revision based on an infringement of EU law must be requested within a period of 
one month from the date of notification of the judgment that is the subject of the 
revision, even if the judgment of the Court on which it is based was delivered 
subsequently, which could lead to the conclusion that the time limit applicable to a 
revision governed by the Code of Civil Procedure is more favourable than that 
applicable to a revision governed by the Law on administrative proceedings. 
26 According to the referring court, the feature that distinguishes the two forms of 
revision, which gives rise to doubts as to the correct application of the principle of 
equivalence, is that the Law on administrative proceedings permits the revision of 
any final judgment delivered in breach of EU law, whereas the decision by which 
the Constitutional Court declares a national provision to be unconstitutional 
permits only the revision of the final judgment delivered in the proceedings in 
which the plea of unconstitutionality was raised. 
27 The referring court notes, however, that the Constitutional Court has interpreted 
the conditions for revision laid down in the Code of Civil Procedure broadly and 
held that a decision upholding a plea of unconstitutionality benefits the authors 
thereof and the authors of the plea itself, raised before the publication of the 
decision, but in other cases that have been finally decided. 
28 In that context, on the one hand, the referring court emphasises that, in the 
judgment in Călin, the Court observed, with regard to the principle of 
effectiveness, that every case in which the question arises as to whether a national 
procedural provision makes the application of EU law impossible or excessively 
difficult must be analysed by reference to the role of that provision in the 
procedure, its conduct and its special features, viewed as a whole, before the 
various national bodies, taking into consideration, where relevant, the protection 
of the rights of the defence, the principle of legal certainty and the proper conduct 
of the procedure. 
29 Moreover, the referring court notes that, in the same judgment, the Court stated 
that EU law, in particular the principles of equivalence and effectiveness, must be 
interpreted as not precluding, in principle, a national provision laying down a 
limitation period of one month for the submission of a request for revision of a 
final decision handed down in breach of EU law, which runs from the date of 
notification of the decision in respect of which revision is sought. 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-149/24 
 
8  
30 In those circumstances, according to the referring court, the application for 
revision made in the present proceedings would, in principle, be out of time. 
31 However, according to the referring court, the circumstances of the present case – 
in which the same decision of the national competition authority at issue in the 
case decided by the judgment in Zenith Media Communications is being 
challenged, the method of calculating turnover is a matter of ordinary law in both 
cases, and the applicant for revision, United Media, had also applied for a 
preliminary ruling to be requested from the Court on that issue, but its request was 
rejected by the appellate court – are such that the correct application of EU law is 
not so clear as to leave no room for reasonable doubt. 
32 According to the referring court, the calculation of the time limit within which an 
application for revision for breach of EU law may be made from the date of 
notification of the decision subject to revision in all cases, irrespective of the 
particular features of the proceedings, could create an obstacle making it 
impossible or excessively difficult to apply EU law when correcting a judgment 
contrary thereto. 
33 Consequently, the referring court considers that there is a need for an 
interpretation by the Court of the rules and principles of EU law applicable in the 
present case.