Judgment_paragraph 124 · International Skating Union v European Commission (C-124/21 P)

124In essence, the ISU claims that the General Court, first, incorrectly interpreted the concept of anticompetitive ‘object’ in finding, as did the Commission, that, given the type of conduct that was at issue in the present case, the examination of its content, the aims that it sought to achieve and its legal and economic context should be carried out in the light of the judgments of 1 July 2008, MOTOE (C‑49/07, EU:C:2008:376), and of 28 February 2013, Ordem dos Técnicos Oficiais de Contas (C‑1/12, EU:C:2013:127). Second, the General Court wrongly held that that conduct should be classified as an infringement of Article 101(1) TFEU on the ground that it had as its ‘object’ the restriction of competition and that it followed from the Commission’s assessments relating to the content, aims and economic and legal context of the prior authorisation and eligibility rules. At the same time, that court failed to rule on other essential elements such as the intention attributed by the Commission to the ISU and the effects of those rules on the relevant market and on the related market of figure skating. Third, while carrying out a joint examination of the second and fourth pleas in law which concerned the concept of anticompetitive ‘object’ within the meaning of Article 101(1) TFEU and the case-law of the Court of Justice according to which certain conduct may be regarded as falling outside the scope of that provision (judgment of 19 February 2002, Wouters and Others, C‑309/99, EU:C:2002:98), the General Court committed additional errors of law consisting, in essence, of ‘merging’ those two separate questions and substituting, in so doing, its own assessment for that of the Commission.