Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Application for interim measures - Suspension of operation of a measure - Interim measures - Request for measures outside the scope of the main action - Inadmissibility

(EEC Treaty, Arts 185 and 186; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104(1))

2. Application for interim measures - Suspension of operation of a measure - Total or partial suspension of a decision conditionally authorizing a concentration between undertakings - Court lacking sufficient information - Parties asked to provide information - Suspension granted until the judge hearing the application for interim measures determines, in the light of the information to be communicated, the significance of the conditions laid down in the decision

(EEC Treaty, Art. 185; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104(2))

Summary

1. An application to suspend the operation of a measure is inadmissible if the measure of which suspension is sought is not the same as that against which the main action is brought. The same applies to an application for any other interim measure which does not relate to the matter at issue in the main action.

For that reason, an application to suspend a proceeding under the competition rules conducted pursuant to Regulation No 17 is inadmissible if the main action is directed against a decision taken at the conclusion of a proceeding under Regulation No 4064/89 on the control of concentrations and if the applicant bases his application merely on alleged contradictions in the Commission' s attitude in the two sets of proceedings.

2. If an applicant, alleging serious and irreparable damage, applies for suspension of a Commission decision which requires, as a condition for authorizing a concentration between third-party undertakings, that those undertakings withdraw from a company in which the applicant is a shareholder, and the judge hearing the application does not have enough information to assess the risk of such damage, the judge must order the parties to supply the relevant information.

If, pending receipt of such information, the existence of the company of which the applicant is a shareholder might be endangered if the decision concerned is not suspended and such suspension does not appear likely to have serious effects on the rights of others not parties to the proceedings or to prejudice either the public interest or the Commission' s interest in the immediate implementation of its decisions, an order must be granted, as a protective measure, suspending operation of the decision in so far as it might entail the dissolution of the company of which the applicant is a shareholder.