Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1 Acts of the institutions - Statement of reasons - Obligation - Scope - Reference to a previous act - Permissible

(EC Treaty, Art. 190)

2 Appeals - Pleas in law - Review by the Court of the appraisal of the evidence - Not possible except where the sense has been distorted

3 Competition - Administrative procedure - Investigation of complaints - Account to be taken of the Community interest in the investigation of a particular case - Criteria of assessment

4 Competition - Administrative procedure - Investigation of complaints - Priorities set by the Commission - Duty to assess on a case-by-case basis - Where practices found to be improper have ceased - Insufficient ground for discontinuing the investigation

(EC Treaty, Arts 3(g), 85, 86 and 89(1))

5 Procedure - Measures of inquiry - Request made by a party - Whether a party's request may be refused - Conditions

Summary

1 The statement of reasons for an administrative act may refer to other acts and, in particular, take note of the content of an earlier act, especially if it is connected.

2 The appraisal by the Court of First Instance of the evidence put before it does not constitute a point of law subject to review by the Court of Justice on appeal, except where the clear sense of that evidence has been distorted or the substantive inaccuracy of the Court of First Instance's findings is apparent from the documents in the case-file.

3 Since, in a field such as competition law, the factual and legal circumstances may differ considerably from case to case, the Commission's assessment of the Community interest raised by a complaint depends on the circumstances of each case. The number of criteria of assessment to which the Commission may refer should not be limited; nor, conversely, should it be required to have recourse exclusively to certain criteria.

4 The Commission, entrusted by Article 89(1) of the EC Treaty with the task of ensuring application of the principles laid down in Articles 85 and 86, is responsible for defining and implementing the orientation of Community competition policy. In order to perform that task effectively, it is entitled to give differing degrees of priority to the complaints brought before it.

However, when deciding the order of priority for dealing with the complaints brought before it, the Commission may not regard as excluded in principle from its purview certain situations which come under the task entrusted to it by the Treaty. It is required to assess in each case how serious the alleged interferences with competition are and how persistent their consequences are.

If anti-competitive effects continue after the practices which caused them have ceased, the Commission thus remains competent under Articles 2, 3(g) and 86 of the Treaty to act with a view to eliminating or neutralising them.

In deciding to discontinue consideration of a complaint against those practices on the ground of lack of Community interest, the Commission therefore cannot rely solely on the fact that practices alleged to be contrary to the Treaty have ceased, without having ascertained that anti-competitive effects no longer continue and, if appropriate, that the seriousness of the alleged interferences with competition or the persistence of their consequences has not been such as to give the complaint a Community interest.

5 Since the appellants had asked the Court of First Instance to order production of a document which was apparently material to the outcome of the case and had stated the author, the addressee and the date of the document in question, the Court of First Instance could not reject their request on the ground that the document had not been produced and there was nothing to confirm its existence.

It could not simply reject the parties' allegations on the ground of insufficient evidence, when it was up to the Court, by granting the appellants' request to order production of documents, to remove any uncertainty there might be as to the correctness of those allegations, or to explain the reasons for which such a document could not in any event, whatever its content, be material to the outcome of the case.