Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1998:255
Date: 1998-05-26
Language of the case: French
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Competition;Agreements, decisions and concerted practices;Dominant position
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - successful
Origin: France

Summary of the Judgment 
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 pos­
sible except where the sense has been distorted 
3. Competition — Administrative procedure — Investigation of complaints — Accotmt to be 
taken of the Community interest in the investigation of a particular case — Criteria of assess­
ment 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-119/97 P 
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 
1. The statement of reasons for an adminis­
trative 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 con­
stitute 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 inaccu­
racy of the Court of First Instance's find­
ings 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 Commu­
nity 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 orien­
tation of Community competition policy. 
In order to perform that task effectively, it 
is entitled to give differing degrees of pri­
ority to the complaints brought before it. 
However, when deciding the order of pri­
ority 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 com­
petition are and how persistent their con­
sequences are. 
If anti-competitive effects continue after 
the practices which caused them have 
ceased, the Commission thus remains com­
petent under Articles 2, 3(g) and 86 of the 
Treaty to act with a view to eliminating or 
neutralising them. 
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UFEX AND OTHERS v COMMISSION 
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' alle­
gations on the ground of insufficient evi­
dence, 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 cor­
rectness of those allegations, or to explain 
the reasons for which such a document 
could not in any event, whatever its con­
tent, be material to the outcome of the 
case. 
I - 1343