Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Procedure Procedure before the Court of First Instance Document mistakenly produced by a party

2. Competition Administrative procedure Investigation of complaints Excessive duration Consequences Action for annulment of the Commission's decision Length of the procedure before the Court of First Instance Excessive duration Consequences

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. Appeals Grounds Plea directed against the decision of the Court of First Instance on costs Inadmissible if all other pleas dismissed

(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51, second para.)

Summary

1. The Court of First Instance properly decided that a document whose production had been requested neither by the Court of First Instance nor by one of the parties should be removed from the file and returned to the party which had mistakenly produced it.

( see para. 37 )

2. The excessive amount of time it may have taken to deal with a complaint that the competition rules have been infringed cannot, as a rule, affect the actual content of the final decision adopted by the Commission. It cannot, save in exceptional circumstances, alter the substantive matters which, according to the case, determine whether or not the existence of an infringement of the competition rules is established or give the Commission good reason not to conduct an investigation.

Similarly, as regards the length of the proceedings before the Court of First Instance in an action for annulment of a Commission decision, in the absence of any indication that the unreasonable length of the proceedings affected their outcome in any way, that length of time cannot justify setting aside the judgment of the Court of First Instance in so far as it rules on the legal characterisation of the facts before that court in the light of the applicable rules.

( see paras 44-46 )

3. The assessment by the Commission of the Community interest presented by a complaint that the competition rules have been infringed depends on the circumstances of each case. Accordingly, the number of criteria of assessment the Commission may refer to should not be limited, nor conversely should it be required to have recourse exclusively to certain criteria.

( see para. 67 )

4. Where all the other pleas in an appeal have been rejected, a plea concerning the alleged illegality of a decision of the Court of First Instance as to costs must be rejected as inadmissible under the second paragraph of Article 51 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice, which provides that no appeal is to lie regarding only the amount of the costs or the party ordered to pay them.

( see para. 77 )