Meca-Medina decision

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The decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the case C-519/04 P from 2006, according to which the ECJ in the European Union also applies the competition rules of the EC Treaty to decisions and statutes of sports associations, became known as the Meca Medina decision wants to apply.

The plaintiff, David Meca Medina, 2006

The decision is named after the Spanish long-distance swimmer David Meca Medina , who had sued the court against his two-year ban for doping .

Legal scholars see the decision in favor of the European sports associations as far-reaching as the Bosman decision from 1995.

Meca Medina, like his sports colleague Igor Majcen, had lodged a complaint with the European Commission against the doping control rules of the international swimming federation FINA , because they allegedly interfered with their economic freedom of action in an inadmissible manner. The EU Commission rejected the complaint because the FINA regulations only concern sporting matters. The European Court of Justice (GC) also took this position. The ECJ, to which the athletes appealed, reversed the ECJ's judgment, but dismissed the action anyway.

In the grounds of the judgment, the ECJ suggests that the EU competition rules are generally applicable to the rules of sports associations. An exception could only be made in individual cases if the issue was exclusively sporting and not affecting the competition.

In the case of the plaintiff, however, the ECJ came to the conclusion that the doping control rules did not constitute a prohibited restriction of competition because they served a legitimate purpose.

literature

  • Volker Emmerich: Discussion of the decision. In: JuS. 2006, pp. 1123-1125.
  • Peter W. Heermann: Association autonomy versus antitrust law. In: CaS. 2006, p. 345ff.
  • Brand. Orth: Meca-Medina and Majcen / Commission. Compatibility of sporting regulations with EU competition rules (Art. 81, 82 EC). In: Spurt. 2006, pp. 198f.
  • Gianni Infantino: Meca-Medina: A step back for the European sport model and the specificity of sport? ( Download )

Web links