Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2014:223
Date: 2014-04-03
Language of the case: English
Subject matter: Competition
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded;Appeal - inadmissible
Origin: France

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber), 25 June 2014 1. Appeals — Grounds — Inadequate or contradictory reasoning — Scope of the obligation to state reasons — Reliance by the General Court on implicit reasoning — Lawfulness — Conditions (Art. 256(1) TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 36 and 53, first para; Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 81) 2. Competition — Administrative procedure — Commission’s power of inspection — Decision ordering an inspection — Obligation to state reasons — Scope (Council Regulation No 1/2003, Art. 20(4)) 3. Appeals — Grounds — Ground submitted for the first time in the context of the appeal — Inadmissibility (Art. 256(1) TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.) 4. Appeals — Grounds — Ground directed against the decision of the General Court on costs — Inadmissibility where all the other grounds have been rejected (Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, second para.) 1. See the text of the decision. (see para. 21) 2. Articles 4 and 20(1) of Regulation No 1/2003 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty confer inspection powers on the Commission which are designed to enable it to perform its task of protecting the common market from distortions of competition and to penalise any infringements of the competition rules on that market. Thus, so far as concerns, specifically, the Commission’s inspection decisions, it is apparent from Article 20(4) of Regulation No 1/2003 that those inspection decisions must indicate, inter alia, the subject and the objective of the inspection. That obligation to state specific reasons constitutes a fundamental requirement not only to show that the intervention envisaged within the undertakings concerned was proportional, but also to put those undertakings in a position to understand the scope of their duty to cooperate, while at the same time preserving their rights of the defence. The Commission is not required to communicate to the addressee of a decision ordering an investigation all the information at its disposal concerning the presumed infringements, or to make a precise legal analysis of those infringements, providing it clearly indicates the presumed facts which it intends to investigate. Although, admittedly, the Commission is obliged to indicate as precisely as possible the evidence sought and the matters to which the investigation must relate, it is, on the other hand, not essential in a decision ordering an inspection to define precisely the relevant market, to set out the exact legal nature of the presumed infringements or to indicate the period during which those infringements were committed, provided that that inspection decision contains the essential elements set out above. Having regard to the fact that inspections take place at the beginning of an investigation, the Commission still lacks precise information to make a specific legal assessment and must first verify the accuracy of its suspicions and the scope of the incidents which have taken place, the aim of the inspection being specifically to gather evidence relating to a suspected infringement. (see paras 33-37) 3. See the text of the decision. (see para. 45) 4. See the text of the decision. (see para. 51)