By its Decision no. 812/2023, adopted following the relevant Statement of Objections and the conclusion of the oral hearing, the Hellenic Competition Commission (HCC), in plenary, decided as follows: waives the Commitments referred to in points A), B), D) and E) of the HCC’s earlier Decision no 682/2019. As regards Commitment C), following commitment review, MYTILINEOS S.A. is required to maintain the provision of clean aluminium waste recasting services to meet the needs of EP.AL.ME.'s existing and solvent customers, as long as the trade agreements between them are honored, at a rate of 50% of the smelting production provided in the reference year 2018, under HCC Decision no. 682/2019 (i.e., 12,859 tons). The reformulated commitment C) shall be valid for 2 years, following HCC Decision no. 682/2019, a period which is deemed appropriate and proportionate for the purposes of this case while, upon expiry of the above period, the commitment shall automatically and definitively cease to have effect.
According to the grounds of the Decision, following the assessment of the effectiveness of the existing commitments and the conditions of competition, the HCC decided to waive the Commitments under A), B), D) and E) of HCC Decision no. 682/2019, as the commitments under A), B), D) relate, in any event, to a pure cessation of abusive practices, which are in any event prohibited by Articles 2 of Law 3959/2011 and 102 TFEU and, therefore, do not have an independent binding effect; in addition, regarding commitment E), no further assessment is necessary, as the obligation to inform the clients of MYTILINEOS/EP.AL.ME. was observed. As regards commitment C), the HCC took into account: i) the absence of a significant and definitive change in market conditions as meaning the absence of an actual and definitive entry of a new competitor-foundry into the market and the creation of an alternative solution for extruders, ii) the emerging future activity of an EP.AL.ME.’s major customer, iii) the gradual switch of another EP.AL.ME.’s major customer to possible alternative solutions such as foreign companies/foundries as a market-expanding trend and iv) the expressed intention of MYTILINEOS to expand the overall capacity of the specific aluminium foundry in order to meet the relevant objectives of reducing direct and indirect emission of pollutants in aluminium production for reasons of environmental protection; therefore, the maintenance of half of the production of the reference year in the relevant commitment under C) for a period of 2 years is considered proportionate and appropriate.