By judgment delivered on 15 January 2026, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on a preliminary reference made by the Consiglio di Stato by order of 26 August 2024.
The referring court asked, in essence, whether Articles 41 and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights preclude a national regime which, in proceedings concerning the supervision of agreements restricting competition and for the purpose of exercising sanctioning powers (without prejudice to remedial powers), does not expressly treat the deadline for the conclusion of the procedure set out in the statement of objections as peremptory, thereby permitting the competition authority to unilaterally extend that deadline by reasoned acts where circumstances arise that lead to an objective or subjective enlargement of the scope of the investigation.
The question arose in the context of proceedings between Imballaggi Piemontesi S.r.l. (“Imballaggi Piemontesi”) and the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (“AGCM”) concerning fines imposed for participation in the corrugated‑board cartel. By decision of 22 March 2017 the AGCM opened an investigation under Article 14 of Law No. 287/1990 and fixed the deadline for its conclusion at 31 May 2018. During the investigation the Authority extended the scope of the procedure both in terms of parties involved and in terms of the conduct under scrutiny, and accordingly postponed the deadline first to 31 December 2018 and subsequently to 19 July 2019. By decision No. 27849 of 17 July 2019 the AGCM found that Imballaggi Piemontesi had participated in an anti‑competitive agreement in the market for corrugated board sheets (the so‑called “sheets agreement”) and imposed a fine of €6,147,746. The Lazio Regional Administrative Court dismissed the company’s challenge, while the Consiglio di Stato upheld the appeal only as to the amount of the fine. Imballaggi Piemontesi brought an action for review (revocazione), alleging that the sanctioning measure was time‑barred because the investigative deadline had been breached, disputing the characterization of that deadline as merely directory rather than peremptory, and requesting that the Consiglio di Stato refer a question to the Court of Justice on the peremptory nature of the investigative deadline set by the AGCM in the act opening the procedure pursuant to Article 6(3) of Presidential Decree No. 217/1998.
The Court of Justice held that national competition authorities “must be able, where necessary in order to be able to impose effective and dissuasive fines for infringements of Union competition law, to defer the deadline for the conclusion of the investigative phase of that procedure.” In that regard, the Court reiterated that national competition authorities must be able to assign different priorities to the complaints submitted to them and therefore enjoy a wide margin of discretion. Consequently, an authority may be obliged to defer the investigative deadline, for example to give priority to other proceedings. The Court further observed that cases under Union competition law frequently require complex factual and economic analysis and that national authorities will often need to adopt numerous investigative acts and measures, which will inevitably extend the duration of the infringement procedure. The Court emphasised that an absolute prohibition on deferring the investigative deadline could impede the imposition of effective and dissuasive fines for infringements of Union competition law and could render the application of the relevant rules practically impossible or excessively difficult, in breach of the principle of effectiveness. Accordingly, the Court confirmed that national competition authorities may defer the investigative deadline where necessary for the imposition of sanctions.
The Court qualified that such a deferral must not result in the exceeding of a reasonable time within which the procedure must be concluded; that assessment is to be made in light of the circumstances of each case, including the complexity of the procedure and the conduct of the parties. The Court specified that any deferral:
- must be duly reasoned by the national authority;
- must be communicated as soon as possible to the undertaking concerned;
- must be subject to judicial review.
Finally, the Court recalled that a breach of the principle of respect for a reasonable time may justify annulment of a decision only where it entails an infringement of the defence rights of the undertaking concerned. As the Consiglio di Stato had already found, Imballaggi Piemontesi did not demonstrate that the deferral of the investigative deadline prejudiced the exercise of its defence rights in the present case.
On that basis the Court concluded that Article 101 TFEU, read in the light of the general principle of the right to good administration, Article 47 of the Charter and the principle of effectiveness, must be interpreted as not precluding a national rule which does not expressly provide that the investigative deadline fixed in the statement of objections is peremptory, so that the national competition authority may unilaterally defer that deadline by reasoned acts subject to judicial review where circumstances arise that enlarge the subject‑matter of the procedure or the number of undertakings involved, provided that such deferral does not result in exceeding a reasonable time for the conclusion of the investigative phase.
*Reference: Judgment C‑588/24, para. 62.
