Press Release: Antitrust: Commission opens German electricity market to competition

The European Commission adopted a decision that renders legally binding commitments offered by E.ON to address concerns raised in the course of an investigation under EC Treaty rules prohibiting the abuse of a dominant market position (Article 82). The Commission was concerned that E.ON may have withdrawn available generation capacity from the German wholesale electricity markets (to raise prices) to deter new investors in generation. Furthermore, the Commission was concerned that E.ON may have favoured its production affiliate for providing balancing services, while passing the resulting costs on to final consumers, and prevented other power producers from exporting balancing energy into its transmission zone. Subsequently, E.ON offered to divest around 5 000 MW of its generation capacity to address the concerns regarding the generation market. E.ON also committed to divest its extra-high voltage network to meet the concerns on the electricity balancing market. In the light of the commitments offered by E.ON, the Commission has now closed its investigation.