Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2001:359
Date: 2001-06-26
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (1951)
Subject matter: Principles, objectives and tasks of the Treaties;ECSC matters;Prices;Agreements and concentrations
Procedure: Application to intervene;Action for annulment;Appeal - successful;Application for legal aid
Origin: United Kingdom

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Appeals — Grounds — Procedural irregularity — Decision founded on factual evi­
dence on which the appellants had not been heard — Point of law — Admissibility 
(ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51, first para.) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-480/99 P 
2. Appeals — Grounds — Procedural irregularity — Decision founded on facts or 
documents of which one of the parties is unaware •—• Infringement of the rights of 
the defence — Appeal well founded 
(ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51, first para.) 
3. Actions for annulment — Action by undertakings or associations brought under 
Article 33, second paragraph, of the ECSC Treaty — Capacity to act — Legal interest 
in bringing proceedings — Undertakings within the meaning of Article 80 of the 
Treaty •— Undertakings no longer having that status when proceedings commenced 
(ECSC Treaty, Art. 33, second para., and Art. 80) 
4. Acts of the institutions — Notification — Rejection of a complaint brought by an 
association of undertakings acting on behalf of its members — Notification of the 
association deemed to constitute notification of all the members — Association 
constituting merely a collective name — No effect 
(ECSC Treaty, Art. 33, second and third paras) 
5. Actions for annulment — Time-limits — Point from which time starts to run — Act 
neither published nor notified to the appellant •— Precise knowledge of the content 
and grounds 
(ECSC Treaty, Art. 33, third para.) 
1. The question whether the Court of 
First Instance could found its dismissal 
of the appellants' action on factual 
evidence on which the appellants had 
not been heard is a question of law. 
Examination of the extent to which 
such evidence actually formed the basis 
for the dismissal of the action by the 
decision under appeal is a matter which 
falls within the power of review vested 
in the Court of Justice in the context of 
an appeal. That examination is 
directed to the procedure followed 
before the Court of First Instance and 
is not a re-examination of the facts 
relating to the substance of the case. 
(see para. 20) 
2. It would infringe a fundamental prin­
ciple of law to base a judicial decision 
on facts or documents of which the 
parties, or one of them, have not been 
able to take cognisance and in relation 
to which they have not been able to 
state their views. If it takes such 
evidence as its basis when dismissing 
an action as inadmissible, the Court of 
First Instance commits a breach of 
procedure which adversely affects the 
interests of the appellant in the sense 
contemplated in Article 51 of the ECSC 
Statute of the Court of Justice. 
(see paras 24, 34) 
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PLANT AND OTHERS v COMMISSION AND SOUTH WALES SMALL MINES 
3. The fact that the appellants —· who, it 
is not disputed, were undertakings 
within the meaning of Article 80 of 
the ECSC Treaty at the time of the 
practices which were the subject of the 
complaint rejected by the contested 
decision — subsequently ceased to be 
undertakings cannot deprive them of 
their interest in obtaining a finding that 
the competition rules had been 
infringed, an infringement whose con­
sequences affected them at a time when 
they were undertakings and in respect 
of which they were entitled to lodge a 
complaint. 
(see para. 44) 
4. Where a complaint has been lodged by 
an ECSC association of undertakings 
on behalf of its members, notification 
to the association of the rejection of the 
complaint must be deemed to consti­
tute notification to all its members. 
It would be disproportionate and 
contrary to the principle of sound 
administration to require the Commis­
sion either to give notice of a decision 
individually to all the members of an 
association which has requested it, or 
to publish every decision addressed to 
an association. 
The fact that an association amounts to 
no more than a 'collective name' does 
not alter that finding. When complain­
ants who act together use a collective 
name, for practical reasons which may 
also be to their advantage, they must 
accept that the collective name is 
equally valid as regards both letters 
that they send to the Commission and 
those that the Commission sends to 
them. 
(see paras 45-47) 
5. Where it is not possible to ascertain 
with any certainty the date on which 
the appellant first knew exactly what 
was in the measure that it is contesting 
and what were the reasons on which it 
was based and where the measure was 
neither published nor notified, it must 
be held that the period prescribed for 
initiating proceedings began to run, at 
the latest, from the date on which it can 
be established that the appellant had 
such knowledge. 
(see para. 49) 
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