In this blog post for Steptoe Antitrust, author Charles Whiddington explains that the European Commission has entered 2026 with an active cartel enforcement agenda across multiple sectors, including data center construction. In 2025, the Commission issued four cartel decisions through different procedures, while noting that roughly half of its current investigations are initiated ex officio rather than through leniency applications. The authority increasingly relies on internal monitoring teams that analyze market signals, review public statements such as investor calls, apply AI tools, and track unusual market patterns to identify suspicious conduct.
The Commission’s investigative powers stem from Regulation 1/2003, which allows it to conduct unannounced inspections—commonly known as “dawn raids”—at business or private premises. To authorize such inspections, the Commission must adopt a formal decision under Article 20 that outlines the suspected conduct and its objectives. While the decision must provide enough detail for the target company to understand the scope of the investigation and its obligation to cooperate, the Commission is not required to fully define the relevant market or specify the exact time period of the alleged infringement.
Recent rulings by the General Court of the European Union have examined challenges to these inspections. In the Symrise case (2025), the Court reviewed the Commission’s underlying evidence and confirmed that the inspection decision was properly justified. In contrast, in the Michelin case, the Court partially annulled the decision, finding that while public statements about future pricing supported suspicions of potential coordination, they could not justify extending the investigation to earlier periods without additional evidence.
Another case involving Red Bull further clarified procedural safeguards. The Court required the Commission to disclose summaries of confidential evidence within a “confidentiality ring” so that the company’s legal counsel could review the material supporting the inspection decision. Although the Court ultimately upheld the investigation, these rulings underscore that companies can challenge dawn raid decisions and that EU courts closely scrutinize whether the Commission’s investigative actions are supported by sufficient pre-existing evidence—an issue likely to grow in importance as ex officio investigations increase.