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The EU defines cartel agreements as anti - competitive and prohibitive and specifies penalties for their participants. However, Art. 101 TFEU does neither explicitly recognise the status of an instigator, accomplice, or a facilitator, as opposed to active pa rticipating undertakings, nor does it postulate special requirements for their participation in anticompetitive agreements. Nevertheless, in their recent decisions both Commission of the EU and EU Court of Justice confirmed that neither ‘mere’ facilitating of anticompetitive conduct by undertakings outside the cartelised markets fall outside the scope of Art 101 TFEU. The paper focuses on the analysis of the latest case law of the General Court and the EU Court of Justice concerning with the conditions and circumstances necessary for the fulfilment of the illegal character of acts conducted by the passive participants of cartel agreements under the EU law act. It examines the forms and features of the passive participation as well as the proof of evidence h eld for relevant or necessary by the Commission and/or the EU courts in order to qualify such conduct as participation in an illegal cartel agreement.