1.

Before beginning an examination of the substance of the objections raised, I must make quite clear what is the one purpose of the contested Decision and so of the judicial proceedings. I do this in the context of the question, discussed at length during the oral proceedings, whether SOREMA's membership of the OKU is caught by Article 65, and whether as a restriction on competition it requires authorization. This is a question which in the applicant's view has to be examined as much from the point of the lack of a statement of reasons as from that of infringement of the Treaty. But to do that, it is essential to look once again briefly at the series of decisions which have already been mentioned in the recital of facts to see, when viewed as a whole, what light they throw on the question posed. In the preamble to Decision No 19/57, the first decision dealing with the OKU, the following sentences are to be found, which, because of their importance I am repeating verbatim. ‘Nevertheless, these new agreements’ (meaning agreements including the establishment and the objects of the OKU) ‘having as their object joint buying by wholesale merchants must in accordance with Article 80 of the Treaty be regarded as falling within the provisions of Article 65 thereof’… “Joint buying ensures for the wholesale merchant members a considerable influence over the market which in turn opens up the possibilitity of practices being applied which are contrary to the provisions of Article 4 (b) or (d) of the Treaty, particularly the prohibition on discrimination and sharing or exploiting of markets.” The passages quoted apply without distinction to the German and the French wholesale merchants participating in the OKU and make clear that the High Authority thought itself bound to consider the concentration from the point of view of Article 65 and concluded that under that Article it was subject to authorization. It does not seem that this basic assessment had changed when SOREMA was substituted for the French wholesale coal merchants as a member of the OKU (Decision No 31/59), or that therefore, as the applicant assumes, there was at this time any change of view on the position as to membership. SOREMA's membership of the OKU, likewise authorized under Article 65, simply meant that the French wholesale coal merchants, who had previously been able to participate in the OKU decisions individually (but who in fact, as we have learned, were already represented by SOREMA), were in future necessarily represented as a group. That is why Decision No 31/59 is expressly designated as an extension of Decision No 19/57, and why one finds it stated there that SOREMA looks after the interests of the French merchants in the OKU. Nor do the later decisions of the High Authority reveal any change of treatment of SOREMA's legal position. When Decision No 12/60 approved SOREMA's membership of the OKU, this can only mean that authorization under Article 65 of the Treaty was given. Besides, it clearly emerges from the preamble to Decision No 12/60 that the High Authority made no difference of principle between individual French merchants’ membership of the OKU and their collective representation through SOREMA, for the Decision speaks expressly of the link between the Oberrheinische Kohlenunion, and the French merchants grouped together in SOREMA. Finally the last of the authorizing decisions (No 3/62) does not depart from this view; this can be seen, for example, by the reproduction of SOREMA's request in the grounds of which reference is made to the usefulness of cooperation with the OKU because of growing competition and the necessity for an accurate survey of the market. The fact that the High Authority reproduced precisely this part of the request in the preamble to its Decision shows in what context the High Authority was prepared to view SOREMA's membership. Thus there seems no doubt that in all its authorizing decisions the High Authority treated the link between SOREMA and the OKU as falling within Article 65 of the Treaty and regarded it as subject to authorization under Article 65. This treatment for legal purposes has not been challenged in any way. It could only have been made a subject for argument in the present case if Decision No 8/63, now being contested, had proceeded to a reassessment of the concentration or confirmed it for it is not possible to attack previous individual decisions by raising an objection of illegality. But that is clearly not the case. as the short operative part of Decision No 8/63 clearly shows, the sole object of the Decision was to fix a final time-limit for the authorization given to SOREMA for membership of the OKU, and thus to put an end to the development. Nothing in the Decision, either in the operative part or in the preamble, indicates that the High Authority had made any fresh approach to the question of the necessity for authorization, in the way of reconsideration, reexamination and redetermination. It regarded the necessity for authorization rather as a definitively established fact and based the contested Decision on it. Consequently, our case turns solely on the question whether fault can be found in the fixing of a period of validity of the earlier authorization, and all arguments not bearing on this issue can be disregarded as irrelevant to the subject matter of the proceedings.