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In the judgment under appeal the General Court summarised the factual background to the dispute before it as follows: ‘1. Tomra Systems ASA is the parent company of the Tomra group. Tomra Europe AS coordinates the business of the European distribution subsidiaries within the group. The distribution subsidiaries concerned by the present case are Tomra Systems GmbH in Germany, Tomra Systems BV in the Netherlands, Tomra Leergutsysteme GmbH in Austria, Tomra Systems AB in Sweden and Tomra Butikksystemer AS in Norway …. The Tomra group produces automatic recovery machines for empty beverage containers (reverse vending machines (“RVMs”)) — which are machines for the collection of used beverage containers which identify the container by reference to certain parameters, such as shape and/or bar codes, and calculate the amount of the deposit to be reimbursed to the customer. ... 2. On 26 March 2001 the Commission … received a complaint from Prokent AG (“Prokent”) a Germany company also active in the empty beverage-container collection sector and the supply of related products and services. Prokent requested the Commission to investigate whether [Tomra] had abused a dominant position by preventing it from entering the market. 3. On 26 and 27 September 2001 the Commission inspected the premises of Tomra Systems GmbH, in Germany, and of Tomra Systems BV, in the Netherlands. At the Commission’s request, the European Free Trade Association (“EFTA”) Surveillance Authority inspected the premises of Tomra Systems ASA and its subsidiaries in Norway. ... 4. On 23 December 2002, in a letter to the Commission, [Tomra] stated that they would put an end to the exclusivity agreements and would no longer apply the loyalty rebates. 5. On 30 March 2004 [Tomra] presented a competition compliance programme for the Tomra group, which was to apply from 1 April 2004. 6. On 1 September 2004 the Commission sent a statement of objections to Tomra Systems ASA, Tomra Europe AS and subsidiaries of the Tomra group in six States forming part of the European Economic Area (EEA), to which [Tomra] responded on 22 November 2004. ... ... 7. On 29 March 2006 the Commission adopted [the contested decision]. In that decision it found that [Tomra] had infringed Article 82 EC and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement [the Agreement on the European Economic Area of 2 May 1992 (OJ 1994 L 1, p. 3)] in the period from 1998 to 2002 by implementing an exclusionary strategy in the national RVM markets in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Norway, involving exclusivity agreements, individualised quantity commitments and individualised retroactive rebate schemes, thus foreclosing competition on the markets. I — Relevant market 8. With regard to the relevant product market, the contested decision states that for the purposes of its assessment the Commission started from the premiss that there was a specific market for “high-end” machines or other systems, including in particular all RVMs that can be installed through a wall and connected to backroom equipment, and an overall market encompassing both high-end and low-end equipment. The Commission decided, however, to use the wider market definition as a working basis, since it yielded more favourable figures to [Tomra’s] advantage. 9. With regard to the relevant geographic market, the Commission found in the contested decision that the conditions of competition had not been harmonious across the EEA in the period under consideration and that the relevant geographic markets were national in scope. II — Dominant position 10. In the contested decision, the Commission, after finding, inter alia, that [Tomra’s] market shares in Europe had continuously exceeded 70% in the years before 1997, that after 1997 they exceeded 95% and that, on all the relevant markets, [Tomra’s] market shares were many times larger than those of their competitors, concluded that the Tomra group was a dominant undertaking for the purposes of Article 82 EC and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement. III — Abuse 11. The contested decision states that [Tomra] devised a strategy having an anti-competitive object or effect, both in their practices and in internal discussions within the group. The Commission asserts in the decision that [Tomra] sought to preserve their dominance and market share through means such as preventing new operators gaining market entry, keeping competitors small by limiting their growth possibilities and weakening and eliminating competitors by way of acquisition or other methods. That strategy was, according to the contested decision, implemented through the conclusion, between 1998 and 2002, of 49 agreements between [Tomra] and a certain number of supermarket chains, which took the form of exclusivity agreements, agreements containing individualised quantity commitments and agreements establishing individualised retroactive rebate schemes. 12. It is also apparent from the contested decision that, although the agreements, clauses and conditions contain a number of different features, such as explicit or de facto exclusivity clauses, undertakings or promises, on the part of the customers, to purchase quantities corresponding to a significant proportion of their requirements or retroactive rebate schemes related to the customers’ requirements or a combination of those features, they must all, in the Commission’s view, be seen in the context of [Tomra’s] general policy directed at preventing market entry, market access and growth opportunities for existing and potential competitors and, ultimately, at driving them out of the market so as to create a situation of virtual monopoly. 13. First of all, according to the contested decision, exclusivity clauses, because they require customers to purchase all or a significant part of their requirements from a dominant supplier, are, by definition, liable to have a foreclosure effect. In the present case, as [Tomra] were dominant on the market and as the exclusivity clauses were applied to what the Commission considered could be regarded as a substantial part of the total demand, the Commission concluded that the exclusivity agreements entered into by [Tomra] were capable of having, and in fact had, a market-distorting foreclosure effect. It was stated in the contested decision that, in this instance, there were no circumstances that could exceptionally justify exclusivity or similar arrangements and that [Tomra] had also failed to justify their practices by cost savings. 14. The contested decision then adds that discounts granted for individualised quantities corresponding to the entire or almost entire demand have the same effect as explicit exclusivity clauses, in that they induce the customer to purchase all or virtually all its requirements from a dominant undertaking. The same is true of loyalty rebates, in other words, rebates that are conditional on customers purchasing all or most of their requirements from a dominant supplier. In the Commission’s view, it is not decisive for the exclusionary nature of the agreements or conditions concerned whether the purchase-volume commitment is expressed in absolute terms or as a percentage. So far as [Tomra’s] agreements were concerned, the contested decision states that the stipulated quantity targets constituted individualised commitments which were different for each customer, regardless of its size and purchasing volume, and which corresponded to the customer’s entire requirements or to a large proportion of them, or even exceeded them. The contested decision adds that [Tomra’s] policy of tying their customers, in particular their key customers, into agreements that aimed at excluding competitors from the market and denying them any chance of growth is evident from the documents relating to [Tomra’s] strategy, their negotiations and the offers made by them to their customers. Given the nature of the RVM market and the characteristics of the product itself, in particular the transparency and relatively foreseeable demand of each customer for each year, the Commission found that [Tomra] had the market knowledge necessary to make a realistic estimate of each customer’s approximate demand. 15. Furthermore, concerning the rebates, the Commission noted in the contested decision that the rebate schemes were individual to each customer and the thresholds were linked to the total requirements of each customer or a large part thereof. They were established on the basis of the customer’s estimated requirements and/or purchasing volumes achieved in the past. The incentive for buying exclusively or almost exclusively from [Tomra] was, according to the contested decision, particularly strong where thresholds such as those applied by [Tomra] were combined with a system whereby the achievement of the bonus or a more advantageous bonus threshold benefited all purchases made by the customer during the reference period and not exclusively the purchasing volume exceeding the relevant threshold. Under a retroactive scheme, a customer which has started purchasing from [Tomra] — a very likely scenario given [Tomra’s] strong market position — thus has a strong incentive to reach the required threshold in order to reduce the price of all its purchases from [Tomra]. That incentive increased, according to the contested decision, the closer the customer came to the threshold in question. For the Commission, the combination of a retroactive rebate scheme with a threshold or thresholds corresponding to the customer’s entire requirements or a large proportion thereof represented a strong incentive to buy all or almost all the equipment needed from [Tomra] and artificially raised the cost of switching to a different supplier, even for a small number of units. The Commission therefore concluded that, in accordance with case-law, the rebate schemes at issue had to be qualified as a means of loyalty building and thus as loyalty rebates. 16. Finally, the contested decision points out that, although … for the purpose of establishing an infringement of Article 82 EC, it is sufficient to show that the abusive conduct of the undertaking in a dominant position tends to restrict competition or, in other words, that the conduct is capable of having that effect, the Commission completed its analysis by considering the likely effects of [Tomra’s] practices on the RVM market. In that regard, the contested decision states that during the entire period under consideration, namely 1998 to 2002, [Tomra’s] share on each of the five national markets under consideration remained relatively stable. Over the same period, their competitors’ position remained rather weak and unstable. One successful competitor, the complainant, left the market in 2003 after managing to acquire an 18% share of the German market in 2001. Other competitors that had demonstrated the potential and ability to acquire larger market shares, such as Halton and Eleiko, were eliminated because they were acquired by [Tomra]. In addition, in the Commission’s view, [Tomra’s] exclusionary strategy, as it was operated by them throughout the period from 1998 to 2002, had an effect that is demonstrated by changes in the tied market share and the sales of market players. Moreover, according to the contested decision, some customers started purchasing more of the competing products after the expiry of their exclusionary agreements with [Tomra]. In addition to there being no cost efficiencies such as to justify [Tomra’s] practices, there was in the present case no benefit to consumers either. The contested decision states that the price of [Tomra’s] RVMs did not fall after the sales volume had increased and that, on the contrary, prices stagnated or even rose during the period under investigation. IV — Fine 17. The contested decision states that the assessment of the gravity of [Tomra’s] infringement must take account of the fact that they had deliberately employed the practices in question in the context of their exclusionary strategy and also of the geographic scope of the infringement, namely the fact that it encompassed five EEA States: Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Norway. Conversely, account must also be taken, in the Commission’s view, of the fact that the infringement did not cover the whole of the reference period on all the national markets under consideration and that within each of those markets its intensity could well have varied over time. 18. In particular, the contested decision specifies, at recital 394, that the infringement concerns the following territories and periods: — Germany: 1998 to 2002 — Netherlands: 1998 to 2002 — Austria: 1999 to 2001 — Sweden: 1999 to 2002 — Norway: 1998 to 2001 19. The Commission concluded that it was a serious infringement and set the basic amount of the fine at EUR 16 million, taking as its basis the five-year period running from 1998 to 2002. The starting amount of the fine was increased by 10% for each full year of the infringement. Finally, the contested decision states that there were no aggravating or mitigating circumstances. 20. The enacting terms of the contested decision read as follows: “Article 1 [Tomra] have infringed Article 82 [EC] and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement in the period 1998-2002 by implementing an exclusionary strategy in the national [RVM] markets in [Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Norway], involving exclusivity agreements, individualised quantity commitments and individualised retroactive rebate schemes, thus foreclosing competition on the markets. Article 2 For the infringement referred to in Article 1, a fine of EUR 24 million is imposed on [Tomra], jointly and severally.”’