Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1 Competition - Agreements, decisions and concerted practices - Exclusivity agreements - Exemption - Exclusive distribution contract without an export ban - Existence of a concerted practice seeking to restrict parallel imports - Exclusion from the exemption

2 Acts of the institutions - Statement of reasons - Obligation - Scope

(EC Treaty, Art. 190)

3 Competition - Fines - Amount - Commission's margin of discretion

(Council Regulation No 17, Art. 15)

4 Competition - Fines - Assessment in relation to the undertaking's own conduct - No penalty imposed on another trader - Irrelevant

(Council Regulation No 17, Art. 15(2))

Summary

5 The provisions of Article 85(1) of the Treaty may in no circumstances be declared inapplicable to an exclusive distribution contract which does not in itself include a prohibition of re-exports of the products which are the subject of the contract, where the contracting parties are engaged in a concerted practice aimed at restricting parallel imports intended for an unauthorized dealer.

6 The purpose of the obligation to give reasons for an individual decision is to enable the Community judicature to review the legality of the decision and to provide the party concerned with an adequate indication as to whether the decision is well founded or whether it may be vitiated by some defect enabling its validity to be challenged; the scope of that obligation depends on the nature of the act in question and on the context in which it was adopted. Each part of the decision must be read in the light of the others.

Although under Article 190 of the Treaty the Commission is obliged to state the reasons on which its decisions are based and to mention the factual and legal elements which provide the legal basis for the measure and the considerations which have led to its adoption, it is not required to discuss all the issues of fact and law raised by every party during the administrative procedure.

7 The fines which the Commission imposes in cases of breach of Article 85 et seq. of the Treaty constitute an instrument of its competition policy. The Commission must therefore be allowed a margin of discretion when fixing the amount of fines, in order that it may direct the conduct of undertakings towards compliance with the competition rules.

8 Where an undertaking has by its conduct infringed Article 85(1) of the Treaty, it may not escape a penalty on the ground that another undertaking has not been fined, when the latter's circumstances are not even the subject of proceedings before the Community judicature.