149According to the settled case-law of the Court, not every agreement between undertakings or decision by an association of undertakings which restricts the freedom of action of the undertakings party to that agreement or subject to compliance with that decision necessarily falls within the prohibition laid down in Article 101(1) TFEU. Indeed, the examination of the economic and legal context of which certain of those agreements and certain of those decisions form a part may lead to a finding, first, that they are justified by the pursuit of one or more legitimate objectives in the public interest which are not per se anticompetitive in nature; second, that the specific means used to pursue those objectives are genuinely necessary for that purpose; and, third, that, even if those means prove to have an inherent effect of, at the very least potentially, restricting or distorting competition, that inherent effect does not go beyond what is necessary, in particular by eliminating all competition (judgments of 21 December 2023, European Superleague Company, C‑333/21, EU:C:2023:1011, paragraph 183 and the case-law cited, and of 25 January 2024, Em akaunt BG, C‑438/22, EU:C:2024:71, paragraph 30).
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