Order — ECLI:EU:T:1998:138
Date: 1998-06-24
Language of the case: English
Court formation: Fourth Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Competition;Agreements, decisions and concerted practices
Concepts: General
Procedure: Action for annulment - inadmissible
Origin: Italy

Summary of the Order
1. Actions for annulment — Actionable measures — Definition — Measures producing binding
legal effects — A decision imposing a periodic penalty payment and a decision definitively fix­
ing the amount thereof — Difference
(EC Treaty, Art. 173; Regulation No 17 of the Council, Art. 16(1))
2. Actions for annulment — Interest in bringing proceedings — Action contesting a decision
which has several addressees but indicates only the address of one as the notification address
of the others — inadmissible
(EC Treaty, Art. 173)
II - 2383
SUMMARY — CASE T-596/97
1. Any measure producing binding legal
effects capable of affecting the interests of
the applicant by bringing about a distinct
change in his legal position is an act or
decision which may be the subject of an
action for annulment under Article 173 of
the Treaty.
The decision referred to in Article 16(1)
of Regulation No 17 imposing a periodic
penalty payment expressed in terms of a
number of units of account per day of
delay, calculated from a date fixed by it,
does not produce binding legal effects and
does not therefore constitute a challenge­
able measure for the purposes of Article
173 of the Treaty. Nor does such a
decision produce binding legal effects in
so far as it holds the applicant jointly
liable for the periodic penalty payments
imposed on addressees of the same
decision. That decision constitutes only a
procedural stage during which the Com­
mission adopts, where appropriate, a
decision definitively fixing the total
amount of the periodic penalty payment
and thus bearing enforceable authority.
Before it may adopt this enforceable
decision, the Commission must, however,
fulfil certain procedural obligations.
2. Where a decision having a number of
addressees indicates only the address of
one of them as the notification address of
the others, the addressee who receives
notification cannot have any interest in
challenging any irregularities in notifica­
tion since he is not obliged to forward the
decision to the other addressees and, if
the notification were to be regarded as
irregular, the decision would quite simply
take no effect in their regard.
The question whether irregularities were
committed in such notification will be
relevant only if it should be necessary to
determine whether the contested decision
was properly notified to the other
addressees and, should this be the case, to
determine the date from which the period
which they had for instituting proceed­
ings against that decision under Article
173 of the Treaty began to run.
II - 2384