Action brought on 26 August 2008 — vwd Vereinigte Wirtschaftsdienste v Commission

(Case T-353/08)

(2008/C 301/70)

Language of the case: German

Parties

Applicant: vwd Vereinigte Wirtschaftsdienste AG (Frankfurt am Main, Germany) (represented by R. Bechtold, U. Soltész and C. von Köckritz, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant contests the Commission's decision of 19 February 2008 in Case No COMP/M.4726 — Thomson Corporation/Reuters Group, declaring the concentration of financial information providers Thomson Corporation and Reuters Group compatible with the common market in accordance with Article 8(2) of the EC Merger Regulation (1).

In support of its application, the applicant submits that the contested decision is vitiated by manifest errors of assessment, errors of law and breaches of essential procedural requirements. In this respect the applicant puts forward ten pleas in law.

First, the market for ‘real time datafeeds’ was wrongly delimited, so that the decision is contradictory and conflicts with the decision-making practice of the Commission.

Second, the market position of the parties and the effects of the concentration on the ‘real time datafeeds’ markets were incorrectly assessed, the competitive pressure emanating from Thomson being wrongly assessed in evaluating the horizontal effects of the concentration and the vertical effects of the concentration being misunderstood.

Third, in the market for ‘market data platforms’, the competitive pressure emanating from Thomson in combination with Wombat as the only serious potential competitor was disregarded when assessing the horizontal effects of the concentration.

Fourth, the strengthening as a result of the concentration of Reuters' incentives to foreclose access by third parties to ‘contribution data’ was not assessed.

Fifth, in the market for ‘news’, the market position of the parties and the effects of the concentration were assessed wrongly, and the creation of a monopoly on the ‘upstream’ market was made possible without comprehensible reasons being given.

Sixth, in the markets for ‘desktop products in research and asset management’, and in particular in the national markets for ‘wealth management desktop products’, no adequate investigation was made of the effects on competition of the concentration.

Seventh, the negative overall effects of the concentration across market boundaries were not examined, even though the Commission recognised in the decision that the relevant markets overlapped.

Eighth, commitments which did not relate to all the markets on which the concentration hindered effective competition were regarded as sufficient.

Ninth, the commitments in the areas covered were furthermore incapable of ensuring effective competition.

Tenth, the applicant's right to a fair hearing was infringed by procedural errors.

(1)  Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings (the EC Merger Regulation) (OJ 2004 L 24, p. 1).