July 2021

Decision of the Athens Court of First Instance on the Prohibition of Competitive Acts

The decision of the Athens Court of First Instance (injunction proceedings) No. 2345/2021 in favour of our client company was recently published, which granted our request for the application of a post-contractual non-competition clause. More specifically, a well-known energy company, our client, active in the trading and supply of electricity and natural gas, had concluded a service contract for an indefinite period with a Greek company, the opposing party, for the provision by the latter of intermediary services for the completion of applications for the supply of electricity. The service contract expressly provided for the non-competition obligation of the opposing company for a period of twelve (12) months after the termination of the contract for any reason. The cooperation was running smoothly until the client company terminated the cooperation with the opposing company for good cause, namely because the latter had breached its contractual obligations and the non-competition obligation by concluding a parallel cooperation agreement with two other companies active in the trading and supply of electricity. After the termination of the cooperation agreement, the opposing company continued to cooperate with two other companies, thereby violating the post-contractual non-competition clause expressly agreed upon and causing serious financial damage to our client company. 

The decision adopted granted our request and ordered the company - opposing party 1 to temporarily refrain, namely until the expiry of the 12-month post-contractual non-competition clause, from providing services relating to the identification and acquisition of customers - consumers in Greece and the mediation for the completion of the application for the supply of electricity and/or natural gas to supplying companies whose business is the trading and supply of electricity and/or natural gas, under threat to the company's detriment a fine of 20.000 € on the client's behalf for any breach of the aforementioned obligation; and 2 to temporarily, and in particular until the expiry of the twelve-month post-contractual non-competition clause, fail to attract customers of our client with the aim of encouraging them to terminate their contract with it and subsequently enter into a contract with others, other electricity and/or gas trading and supply companies cooperating with the opposing party, on pain of a fine of EUR 1 000 for each infringement of that obligation, to the detriment of the opposing party and in favour of our client.