Anti-trust case

E.ON has ended a potentially costly competition probe by addressing EU concerns about possible abuse of the company's dominant market position.

The European Commission had earlier expressed concern that E.ON "may have closed off competitors from the market by booking almost the entire capacity at key entry points into the gas network on a long-term basis."

Following the launch of an antitrust investigation, E.ON pledged to release large capacity gas volumes at the entry points to its networks by October 2010.

The concession covers around 15 percent of the pipeline capacity and will be published on the company's Web site sometime next week.

"The notorious lack of transport capacity is currently one of the major obstacles to gas competition in German," said EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia.

"With today's commitments, we have achieved a far-reaching solution which will give competitors access to the transport capacities they need to enter the market."

From 2015, E.ON will make further moves to open the market.

The EU Commission has formally ended its investigation and closed the case against E.ON without imposing any fine.

The commission's decision legally binds E.ON to the commitments it has offered; under EU rules, companies found guilty of abusing their market dominance can be fined up to 10 percent of their global annual turnover.

Last year, for example, the EU imposed a record anti-competition fine of 1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion) against US computer chip maker Intel, which is currently appealing the decision.

dc/afp/Reuters
Editor: Sam Edmonds