Judgment_paragraph 186 · European Superleague Company, SL v Fédération internationale de football association (FIFA) and Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) (C-333/21)

186Given that the absence of a subjective intention to prevent, restrict or distort competition and the pursuit of potentially legitimate objectives are not decisive either for the purposes of application of Article 101(1) TFEU and that, moreover, Articles 101 and 102 TFEU must be interpreted consistently, the Court finds that the case-law referred to in paragraph 183 of the present judgment does not apply either in situations involving conduct which, far from merely having the inherent ‘effect’ of restricting competition, at least potentially, by limiting the freedom of action of certain undertakings, reveals a degree of harm in relation to that competition that justifies a finding that it has as its very ‘object’ the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition. Thus, it is only if, following an examination of the conduct at issue in a given case, that conduct proves not to have as its object the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition, that it must then be determined whether it may come within the scope of that case-law (see, to that effect, judgments of 28 February 2013, Ordem dos Técnicos Oficiais de Contas, C‑1/12, EU:C:2013:127, paragraph 69; of 4 September 2014, API and Others, C‑184/13 to C‑187/13, C‑194/13, C‑195/13 and C‑208/13, EU:C:2014:2147, paragraph 49; and of 23 November 2017, CHEZ Elektro Bulgaria and FrontEx International, C‑427/16 and C‑428/16, EU:C:2017:890, paragraphs 51, 53, 56 and 57).