Of Dawn Raids and Paper Trails: Recent Cases on the European Commission's Investigative Powers

When the European Commission comes knocking before sunrise, they rarely bring croissants – Dawn raids are one of the sharpest tools in the antitrust enforcement arsenal. The legal framework around them is constantly evolving. Three recent cases before the European courts illustrate this development: Red Bull v. Commission, Michelin v. Commission, and Société Générale v. Romania. They address key issues such as the handling of private data, impermissible "fishing expeditions", and procedural safeguards. In a fourth recent case, Eurofield/Unanime, the Commission imposed a fine for an incomplete RFI response, demonstrating that trouble may still arise long after the officials have left.

Gives You…Guidance? Red Bull v. Commission

On 15 October 2025 (Case T-306/23), the General Court dismissed Red Bull's action against the Commission's inspections conducted in March 2023 at the company's offices in Austria, France, and the Netherlands. The inspection formed part of an investigation, code-named "WINGS", triggered by a complaint filed by Monster Energy in 2022. The complaint accused Red Bull of abusing its dominant market position to exclude competitors, including by pressuring retailers and wholesalers to drop rival brands in exchange for financial incentives and using the industry association Energy Drinks Europe to restrict the sale of energy drinks in cans larger than 250 ml.

Red Bull contested the legality of the inspection, arguing that the Commission's order was overly broad, lacked sufficient precision, and amounted to a "fishing expedition". The Court disagreed, holding that the Commission decision was sufficiently reasoned, as it clearly specified the sector, the suspected practices and Red Bull's involvement, and the geographic scope. According to the Court, the Commission was not, at the inspection stage, required to define the relevant markets or prove market power.

Red Bull further claimed that the Commission lacked sufficient evidence to suspect an antitrust violation. The Court rejected this argument too, finding that the Commission had gathered sufficiently serious indicia to justify an inspection. The Court reiterated that various individual indications must be assessed as a whole, and that the Commission was at this stage not required to prove misconduct, but merely to present credible evidence warranting further investigation.

The Court emphasized that the Commission had not relied solely on the competitor's claims, but had taken additional steps to verify them. It also reiterated that the Commission was not obliged to verify every allegation or obtain third-party confirmation, particularly where such actions could alert the party under investigation and thereby undermine the effectiveness of the inquiry.

Following the Court's rejection of Red Bull's appeal, the Commission, on 13 November, opened formal antitrust proceedings.

Hoops: Partial Victory for Michelin v Commission

On 9 July 2025 (Case T-188/24), the General Court partially annulled the Commission's decision to carry out inspections at the premises of Michelin in France. The Commission's inspections, in January 2024, followed an ex-officio investigation into a possible breach of Article 101 TFEU. The Commission, which had originally code-named the case "Hoops", alleged that the French tire manufacturer had coordinated prices with competitors by using public communications to inform them of future pricing policies on replacement tires for cars and trucks in the EEA. Michelin sought to annul the Commission's decision ordering the dawn raid, arguing that the decision was insufficiently reasoned, arbitrary, and disproportionate.

In its judgment, the General Court did not accept Michelin's argument that the Commission's reasoning was "brief, generic, vague and ambiguous". Instead, it recalled that the reasoning must "enable the person concerned to ascertain the reasons for the measure and to enable the competent court to exercise its review". By addressing the object and the purpose of the inspection – i.e., identifying the alleged coordination of prices, the Commission, in the Court's view, had met these requirements. The Court further clarified that the use of terms such as "notably", "including", or "at least" did not obscure the scope of the investigation.

Michelin further argued that the dawn raid amounted to an "exploratory expedition", as the Commission decision was not based on sufficiently serious indicia for an infringement of Article 101 TFEU. Similarly to Red Bull, Michelin claimed that the inspection was instead a broad search for possible wrongdoing. As in the Red Bull ruling, the Court held that at the inspection stage, the Commission only needed to demonstrate that its suspicions are plausible. The Commission had assessed hundreds of thousands of earnings calls across sectors to identify potentially collusive public statements. The Court found that, for the main period under investigation, the Commission identified a series of public statements by tire manufacturers, including the plaintiff, that plausibly suggested coordination of pricing strategies. However, for an earlier period, the Commission had not, in the Court's view, provided contemporaneous indicia of coordination. The only references to the earlier period were retrospective comments made in later earnings calls, which the Court deemed insufficient. The Court therefore annulled the decision to the extent it concerned the earlier period.

Incidentally, in this case, the Commission had used a novel market monitoring tool "to analyze several hundred thousand earnings calls in various sectors and in a number of geographical areas to identify suspicious public statements". While the Court did not in detail discuss the tool itself, its decision suggests that it does not have general concerns about it.

Procedural Safeguards Front and Center: Société Générale v. Romania

For our next case study, we make a little change of scenery: From the Kirchberg in Luxembourg, we travel to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg, before which French bank Société Générale challenged a dawn raid carried out by the Romanian Competition Council on the premises of the bank's Romanian branch. Triggered by media reports, the Competition Council had been investigating an alleged secret agreement between banks to raise inter-bank loan interest rates, and the corresponding exchange of information in violation of Article 101 TFEU (and corresponding Romanian law). Ultimately, the Competition Council did not find an antitrust infringement and, in 2013, closed the proceedings.

After its challenges before the Romanian courts had been rejected, Société Générale turned to the ECtHR, submitting that the inspection violated Article 8 ECHR, which protects the right to respect for private life, home, and correspondence. The company complained that the inspection had not been authorized by a court, but only by the Competition Council. (At the time of the inspection, Romanian law allowed inspections at company premises without prior judicial authorization.) Société Générale further argued that the inspection order was vague, and that the inspectors had unsupervised and unrestricted access to confidential documents.

In its judgment of 18 March 2025 (Application 38798/13), the ECtHR found that the inspection and the seizure of documents generally interfered with the company's right to respect for its home and correspondence. By contrast, the right to respect for private life was not affected in the first place, as no individual but only the company had complained.

The Court, however, ultimately found that the interference was justified and proportionate under Article 8(2) ECHR. The Court granted the national authorities a wide margin of appreciation since the case concerned a legal person as opposed to an individual. The Court held that the Competition Council's inspectors had only started the inspection after legal representatives of the company had arrived, informed them verbally of the scope of the dawn raid, and afterwards prepared a detailed inspection report. The ECtHR also underlined that only 32 emails were seized, avoiding concerns of a "massive and indiscriminate" seizure documents, and that Société Générale could (and did) request confidentiality of seized documents.

With regard to the lack of judicial authorization, the Court reiterated its case-law, according to which such lack can be offset by an effective ex post facto judicial review. The ECtHR found that Société Générale was able to appeal the inspection before the Competition Council immediately after it had taken place, and to contest the measure before a court. Further, Société Générale could also appeal the decision finalizing the investigation. The Court also underlined several procedural safeguards, including the presence of company representatives, the existence of a detailed report of the inspection, and the company's right to comment. All in all, the ECtHR concluded, Société Générale was granted effective judicial review.

The judgment emphasizes the need for adequate procedural safeguards, such as the presence of company representatives during the inspection and the right to request confidentiality, and effective judicial control. It also suggests that the seizure of large volumes of documents or data may violate the ECHR.

Half Answers, Full Fines: Eurofield/Unanime

Investigative powers are not just about dawn raids. RFIs are another cornerstone of the Commission's fact-finding toolbox – and, as recent developments show, incomplete replies can come at a cost.

On 8 September, the Commission fined Eurofield and its former parent Unanime Sport approximately EUR 172,000 for supplying incomplete information in connection with the Commission's ongoing investigation into the synthetic turf sector – the first-ever fine for an incomplete RFI response (Case AT.40966). The case illustrates the Commission's increasing emphasis on procedural compliance. Following an initial "simple" RFI under Article 18(2) of Regulation 1/2003 in June 2023, the Commission grew concerned that Eurofield's reply was incomplete in light of documents gathered during earlier dawn raids. In October 2023, it escalated matters by issuing a formal Article 18(3) decision, warning that procedural infringements could trigger fines. In November 2024, when Eurofield's second reply again fell short, the Commission opened an investigation into the suspected procedural breach investigation, and ultimately imposed a fine of 0.3% of the parties' combined total turnover, which was reduced by 30% due to their cooperation after the investigation had been opened. The fine was imposed jointly and severally on Eurofield and Unanime Sport, which was the ultimate parent at the time of the infringement.

As Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera put it, RFIs are "a vital tool to uncover antitrust infringements", and the Commission "will not hesitate to pursue similar cases in the future". In other words, Companies should approach RFIs as high-stakes compliance processes, as the Commission seems eager to act against incomplete or inaccurate responses to their RFIs.

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With procedural fines on the rise and human rights considerations entering the dawn-raid arena, one thing is for sure: all sides must stay alert – at dawn as in the light of day.

Until next time, keep that dawn raid manual updated, and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest EU competition law topics.