Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2001:53
Date: 2001-02-14
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Competition;Agreements, decisions and concerted practices
Concepts: Admissibility and examination of applications, forms of order sought and pleas in law;Bringing matters before the Commission;Networks in the motor vehicle sector
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded;Action for annulment - inadmissible
Origin: France

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Competition — Administrative proceedings — Investigation of complaints — Order 
of priority assigned by the Commission — Account taken of Community interest in 
the investigation of a case — Discretion enjoyed by the Commission — Commission 
obliged to state reasons for a decision not to investigate a complaint further — Judicial 
review 
(EC Treaty, Art. 190 (now Art. 253 EC); Council Regulation No 17, Art. 3) 
2. Competition — Agreements — Prohibition — Block exemptions — Regulation 
No 123/85 — Withdrawal of the exemption — Commission's exclusive compe­
tence — Scope — Retroactive withdrawal of the exemption — Not possible 
(Council Regulation No 17, Art. 8; Commission Regulation Nos 123/85, Art. 10, and 
1475/95, Art. 8) 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-62/99 
3. Competition — Administrative proceedings — Investigation of complaints — 
Assessment of the Community interest in investigation of a case — Account taken 
of the cessation of practices in question — Conditions 
(Council Regulation No 17, Art. 3) 
4. Competition — Administrative proceedings — Investigation of complaints — 
Assessment of the Community interest in investigation of a case —· Account taken 
of the existence of a number of complaints alleging similar conduct — Assessment of 
all the evidence — Joinder of administrative proceedings — Commission's discretion 
(Council Regulation No 17, Art. 3) 
5. Procedure — Production of new pleas in law in the course of proceedings — 
Conditions — Amplification of an existing plea •— Limits 
(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 48(2)) 
6. Competition — Administrative proceedings — Investigation of complaints — Com­
mission's obligations — Observance of a reasonable period — Breach — Conse­
quences — Annulment of the decision rejecting a complaint — Excluded 
(Council Regulation No 17, Art. 3) 
1. "When it decides to assign different 
priorities to the examination of the 
complaints submitted to it under Arti­
cle 3 of Regulation No 17, the Com­
mission may not only decide on the 
order in which they are to be examined 
but also reject a complaint on the 
ground that there is insufficient Com­
munity interest in further investigation 
of the case, except where the complaint 
falls within its exclusive competence. 
However, the discretion which the 
Commission has for that purpose is 
not unlimited. Thus, the Commission is 
under an obligation to state reasons if it 
declines to continue with the examina­
tion of a complaint, and those reasons 
must be sufficiently precise and 
detailed to enable the Court effectively 
to review the Commission's use of its 
discretion to define priorities. 
That review must not lead the Court to 
substitute its assessment of the Com­
munity interest for that of the Com­
mission but focuses on whether or not 
the contested decision is based on 
materially incorrect facts, or is vitiated 
by an error of law, a manifest error of 
appraisal or misuse of powers. 
(see paras 36, 42) 
II - 656 
SODIMA v COMMISSION 
2. The Commission does not have exclu­
sive competence to find that a dealer­
ship agreement does not meet the 
conditions for the block exemption 
laid down in Regulation No 123/85 
and, hence, that that regulation does 
not apply to the contract concerned. 
Admittedly, the situation is different 
with regard to competence to with­
draw the benefit of the block exemp­
tion pursuant to Article 10 of Regula­
tion No 123/85. However, that article 
does not provide for retroactive with­
drawal of the benefit of the block 
exemption. The same holds for Arti­
cle 8 of Regulation No 1475/95, which 
replaced Regulation No 123/85 with 
effect from 1 October 1995. Article 8 
of Regulation No 17, which permits 
retroactive withdrawal of an exemp­
tion in certain circumstances, does not 
apply to block exemptions but only to 
individual exemptions. 
(see para. 38) 
3. As regards the evaluation of the Com­
munity interest in investigating a com­
plaint in competition cases, the Court 
must, inter alia, examine whether it is 
clear from the decision to close the file 
that the Commission balanced the 
significance of the impact which the 
alleged infringement may have on 
the functioning of the common market, 
the probability of its being able to 
establish the existence of the infringe­
ment and the extent of the investigative 
measures required for it to perform, 
under the best possible conditions, its 
task of making sure that Articles 85 
and 86 of the Treaty (now Articles 81 
EC and 82 EC) are complied with. 
It is not open to the Commission, when 
deciding the order of priority for deal­
ing with the complaints brought before 
it, to regard as excluded from its field 
of action, a priori, certain situations 
which fall within the scope of its 
obligations under the Treaty. The Com­
mission is in particular required to 
assess in each case how serious the 
alleged interferences with competition 
are. 
It is legitimate for the Commission, 
when assessing the Community interest 
in investigating a complaint, to take 
into account the need to clarify the 
legal position relating to conduct 
alleged in the complaint and to define 
the rights and obligations under Com­
munity law of the various economic 
operators affected by that conduct. 
The Community interest in investigat­
ing a complaint of infringement of the 
Community competition rules does not 
necessarily end when the alleged prac­
tices have ceased. In particular, the 
Commission must ascertain whether 
anti-competitive effects of such a prac­
tice continue and whether the serious­
ness of the alleged interferences with 
II - 657 
SUMMARY — CASE T-62/99 
competition or the persistence of their 
effects are not such as to give the 
complaint a Community interest. 
(see paras 46-47, 50, 52) 
4. When assessing the Community inter­
est in investigating a complaint the 
Commission must not investigate it in 
isolation but rather in the context of 
the situation on the relevant market in 
general. The existence of a number of 
complaints alleging similar conduct by 
the same operators is one of the factors 
the Commission must take into 
account in its assessment of the Com­
munity interest. 
Similarly, where the Commission 
assesses the likelihood of being able to 
establish the existence of an infringe­
ment and the extent of the investigative 
measures needed for that purpose it 
must take into account all the evidence 
in its possession and must not merely 
assess separately the items of evidence 
submitted by each complainant and 
conclude that each of the complaints 
taken in isolation is not supported by 
sufficient evidence. 
However, the Commission is not 
required to join the procedures for 
examining different complaints con­
cerning the conduct of a particular 
undertaking, since the conduct of an 
investigation falls within the scope of 
its discretion. In particular, the fact that 
there are a number of complaints from 
operators belonging to different cate­
gories such as, in the context of the sale 
of motor vehicles, independent resel­
lers, authorised intermediaries and 
dealers cannot preclude the dismissal 
of such of those complaints as appear, 
according to the evidence available to 
the Commission, to be unfounded or of 
insufficient Community interest. In 
such cases, the fact that the Commis­
sion treated the different complaints 
separately cannot be regarded as such 
as being improper. 
(see paras 55-57) 
5. In a dispute between a complainant 
and the Commission following a deci­
sion not to investigate further a com­
plaint of infringement of the competi­
tion rules, the production, in an annex 
to the Commission's defence, of state­
ments by the undertakings concerned 
by the complaint cannot be regarded as 
a new plea in law within the meaning 
of Article 48(2) of the Rules of Proce­
dure where the Commission has pre­
viously mentioned the existence of such 
II - 658 
SODIMA v COMMISSION 
observations in a letter to the complai­
nant. 
(see para. 67) 
6. Although it is true that the Commission 
is required to adopt within a reason­
able time a decision on a complaint 
under Article 3 of Regulation No 17, 
the fact that it exceeds a reasonable 
time, even if proven, does not necessa­
rily in itself justify annulment of the 
contested decision. 
As regards application of the competi­
tion rules, a failure to act within a 
reasonable time can constitute a 
ground for annulment only in the case 
of a decision finding an infringement, 
where it has been proved that infringe­
ment of that principle has adversely 
affected the ability of the undertakings 
concerned to defend themselves. 
Except in that specific circumstance, 
failure to comply with the principle 
that a decision must be adopted within 
a reasonable time cannot affect the 
validity of the administrative procedure 
under Regulation No 17. 
(see paras 93-94) 
II - 659