Case C-87/24, Gaso and Conexus Baltic Grid: Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber) of 23 October 2025 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Administratīvā apgabaltiesa – Latvia) – AS Gaso, AS Conexus Baltic Grid v Sabiedrisko pakalpojumu regulēšanas komisija (Reference for a preliminary ruling – Approximation of laws – Natural gas – Directive 2009/73/EC – Article 41(8) – Concept of an appropriate incentive – Regulation (EC) No 715/2009 – Article 13(1) – Concept of an appropriate return on investments – Transmission and distribution networks – Storage facility – Criteria to be taken into account for setting natural gas transmission and distribution tariffs fixed by the national regulatory authority – Rate of return on capital – Obligation of consistent interpretation – Obligation to state reasons)
Date: 2025-10-23
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: approximation of laws, energy efficiency, energy grid, energy research, energy transport, investment income, natural gas, security of supply, storage of hydrocarbons








C_202506477EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2025/6477


15.12.2025






Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber) of 23 October 2025 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Administratīvā apgabaltiesa – Latvia) – AS ‘Gaso’, AS ‘Conexus Baltic Grid’ v Sabiedrisko pakalpojumu regulēšanas komisija


(Case C-87/24,
                (1)
Gaso and Conexus Baltic Grid)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Approximation of laws - Natural gas - Directive 2009/73/EC - Article 41(8) - Concept of an ‘appropriate incentive’ - Regulation (EC) No 715/2009 - Article 13(1) - Concept of an ‘appropriate return on investments’ - Transmission and distribution networks - Storage facility - Criteria to be taken into account for setting natural gas transmission and distribution tariffs fixed by the national regulatory authority - Rate of return on capital - Obligation of consistent interpretation - Obligation to state reasons)
(C/2025/6477)
Language of the case: Latvian

Referring court

Administratīvā apgabaltiesa

Parties to the main proceedings


Applicants: AS ‘Gaso’, AS ‘Conexus Baltic Grid’
         

Defendant: Sabiedrisko pakalpojumu regulēšanas komisija

Operative part of the judgment







1.


Article 41(8) of Directive 2009/73/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas and repealing Directive 2003/55/EC, and the first subparagraph of Article 13(1) of Regulation (EC) No 715/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 on conditions for access to the natural gas transmission networks and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1775/2005,
must be interpreted as meaning that the tariff principles laid down in those provisions do not apply to natural gas storage facilities in a Member State, without prejudice to the possibility for the national regulatory authorities to extend those principles to access to those facilities for objectively justified reasons.










2.


Article 41(8) and (16) of Directive 2009/73
must be interpreted as precluding national legislation according to which an ‘appropriate incentive’, within the meaning of Article 41(8), is ensured only by the fact that tariff payments by users cover the economically substantiated costs of public utilities and ensure a profit, even at a minimum level, without any obligation being imposed on the national regulatory authority to set out the reasons for the manner in which it provides that natural gas transmission and distribution systems operators benefit from an ‘appropriate incentive’, unless it is possible for that national legislation to be interpreted consistently with that Article 41(8) and (16).










3.


Article 41(8) of Directive 2009/73 and the first subparagraph of Article 13(1) of Regulation No 715/2009
must be interpreted as meaning that the obligation, which those provisions impose on a national regulatory authority, to provide, respectively, an ‘appropriate incentive’ and an ‘appropriate return on investments’, when determining the tariffs or calculation methodologies applied to natural gas transmission and distribution system operators, does not require recourse only to specific methods of calculation, such as the weighted average cost of capital applied in the financial sector, a comparison of the cost of capital with that of non-regulated companies, or adjustments to be made for, inter alia, inflation and/or corporate tax.










4.


Article 41(8) of Directive 2009/73
must be interpreted as meaning that when determining the ‘appropriate incentive’ within the meaning of that provision, the national regulatory authority is required to take into account the past individual performance of the natural gas transmission and distribution system operators concerned.










5.


Article 39(4) of Directive 2009/73
must be interpreted as precluding the assessment of the parameters for calculating the tariffs of the natural gas transmission and distribution system operators concerned, carried out by the national regulatory authority pursuant to Article 41(8) of that directive and pursuant to the first subparagraph of Article 13(1) of Regulation No 715/2009, from being, in the event of a challenge by those operators, subject to the intervention of a third party whose report has been drawn up exclusively at the request of one of those operators.






(1)  OJ C, C/2024/2595.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/6477/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)