Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2017:63
Date: 2017-01-26
Language of the case: English
Court formation: First Chamber
Subject matter: Competition;Agreements, decisions and concerted practices
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded;Appeal - inadmissible
Origin: Austria;Belgium;Germany;France;Italy;Netherlands

Summary — Judgment of the Court (First Chamber), 26 January 2017 1. Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Prohibition — Infringements — Agreements and concerted practices constituting a single infringement — Attribution of liability to an undertaking for the infringement as a whole — Conditions –– Unlawful practices and conduct forming part of an overall plan — Assessment (Art. 101(1) TFEU) 2. Appeal — Grounds — Plea directed against a superfluous ground — Invalid plea in law — Rejection (Art. 256(1) TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.) 3. Appeal — Grounds — Inadequate statement of reasons — Scope of the obligation to state reasons (Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 36 and 53, first para.) 4. Appeal — Grounds — Plea submitted for the first time in the context of the appeal — Inadmissibility (Art. 256(1), second para., TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 170(1)) 5. Appeal — Grounds — Review by the Court of the assessment of the facts and evidence — Possible only where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted (Art. 256(1), second para., TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.) 1. An undertaking which has participated in a single and complex infringement of the competition rules by its own conduct, which fell within the definition of an agreement or concerted practice having an anticompetitive object within the meaning of Article 101(1) TFEU and was intended to help bring about the infringement as a whole, may thus be responsible also in respect of the conduct of other undertakings in the context of the same infringement throughout the period of its participation in the infringement. That is the position where it is shown that the undertaking intended, through its own conduct, to contribute to the common objectives pursued by all the participants and that it was aware of the offending conduct planned or put into effect by other undertakings in pursuit of the same objectives or that it could reasonably have foreseen it and was prepared to take the risk. As those two conditions are alternative, the General Court, where it finds that that undertaking was aware of the offending conduct, is not required to determine whether the undertaking could reasonably have foreseen that conduct and took the risk. (see paras 23, 30) 2. See the text of the decision. (see paras 25, 26) 3. See the text of the decision. (see paras 28-30) 4. See the text of the decision. (see para. 32) 5. See the text of the decision. (see paras 35-38)