THE COMPETITION COUNCIL RENEWED THE INVESTIGATION ON MAŽEIKIŲ NAFTA, AB

Having regard to the Ruling of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania of 8 December 2008 the Competition Council passed a decision to reopen the investigation concerning the compliance of the actions of Mažeikių nafta, AB with the requirements of Article 9 of the Law on Competition of the Republic of Lithuania and Article 82 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.

The Ruling of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania constituted a partial satisfaction of the appeal filed by Mažeikių nafta AB. The Court established that no material procedural infringements had been committed in relation to the case neither in the course of the investigation nor within the examination of the case at the Competition Council which would cause a necessity to repeal selected items in the operative part of the resolutions passed by the Council in 2005. On the other hand, the Court indicated that the Competition Council had failed to examine all circumstances and factors of importance for the definition of relevant market, nor did it eliminate certain doubts of a factual character and failed to sufficiently substantiate its choice of the relevant market definition. On the basis of these considerations the Court resolved to return the case to the Competition Council with an obligation to the competition authority to perform an additional investigation in respect of the items specified in the Ruling of the Court that had not been sufficiently examined and assessed.

Since Mažeikių nafta, AB had paid the fine of LTL 32 m imposed by the Competition Council in advance pending the conclusion of the procedural disputes, upon the initiation of the additional investigation by the Competition Council and on the basis of the Ruling of the Court, Mažeikių nafta, AB has a right to claim, through the State Tax Inspectorate, to recover the fine paid into the State budget.