Order — ECLI:EU:C:2001:393
Date: 2001-07-10
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Competition;Dominant position
Concepts: Appeals;Interpretation of Community law;Definition
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded;Appeal - inadmissible
Origin: Ireland

Summary of the Order 
1. Community law — Interpretation — Acts of the institutions — Decision — Rea­
soning — Taken into consideration 
2. Appeals — Grounds — Plea alleging incorrect assessment of the facts — Inadmis­
sible — Whether the Court may review findings of fact — Possible only where 
evidence has been fundamentally misconstrued 
(Art. 225(1) EC; EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51, first para.) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-497/99 P 
3. Competition — Dominant position — Collective dominant position — Meaning — 
Collective entity 
(Art. 82 EC) 
1. The operative part of a Commission 
decision must be read in the light of its 
reasoning. 
(see para. 15) 
2. Pursuant to Article 225(1) EC and 
Article 51 of the Statute of the Court 
of Justice, an appeal may rely only on 
grounds relating to the infringement of 
rules of law. The Court does not have 
jurisdiction to establish the facts. Nor, 
in principle, does it have the jurisdic­
tion to examine the evidence which the 
Court of First Instance adopted in 
support of those facts. It is for the 
Court of First Instance alone to assess 
the value that should be given to the 
pieces of evidence produced before it. 
That assessment does not therefore 
constitute, save where the clear sense 
of that evidence has been distorted, a 
point of law which is subject, as such, 
to review by the Court of Justice. 
(see paras 39, 59) 
3. In order to establish whether the under­
takings concerned together constitute a 
collective entity on a given market, it is 
necessary to examine the economic 
links or factors which give rise to a 
connection between them, and, in par­
ticular, whether economic links exist 
between them which enable them to act 
together independently of their compe­
titors, their customers and consumers. 
(see para. 46) 
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