Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1 Non-contractual liability - Conditions - Unlawfulness - Damage - Causal link - Burden of proof

(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para.)

2 Competition - Administrative procedure - Commission's obligations - Required to act within a reasonable time

(Council Regulation No 17, Arts 2, 3(1) and 4(1))

3 Competition - Administrative procedure - Application of the audi alteram partem principle - Statement of objections - Obligation to issue a further statement of objections where the infringement alleged is amended

(Council Regulation No 17, Art. 19(1); Regulation No 99/63 of the Commission, Arts 2 and 4)

4 Competition - Administrative procedure - Examination of complaints - Setting of priorities by the Commission

5 Community law - Interpretation - Acts of the institutions - Statement of reasons - Account to be taken

6 Competition - Community rules - Undertaking - Definition - Body governed by private law engaging in an economic activity involving certification of crane-hire firms - Included

(EC Treaty, Art. 85(1))

7 Competition - Agreements, decisions and concerted practices - Prejudicial to competition - Certification system for crane-hire firms - Prohibition on hiring cranes from uncertified firms - Assessment by reference to the nature of the system - Definition of pertinent criteria by the Commission

(EC Treaty, Art. 85(1))

8 Competition - Agreements, decisions and concerted practices - Prejudicial to competition - Setting of prices - System of recommended and internal rates developed within an organization - System resulting in the setting of imposed prices

(EC Treaty, Art. 85(1))

9 Competition - Agreements, decisions and concerted practices - Whether they affect trade between Member States - Criteria - Concerted practice extending over the whole territory of a Member State

(EC Treaty, Art. 85(1))

10 Competition - Agreements, decisions and concerted practices - Prohibition - Exemption - Conditions - Burden of proof - Review by the Court - Limits

(EC Treaty, Art. 85(3))

11 Acts of the institutions - Statement of reasons - Obligation - Scope - Decision applying the competition rules

(EC Treaty, Art. 190)

12 Competition - Fines - Commission's discretion

(Council Regulation No 17, Art. 15(2))

13 Competition - Fines - Amount - Determination - Criteria - Gravity of the infringements - Factors of assessment

(Council Regulation No 17, Art. 15(2))

14 Competition - Fines - Amount - Determination - Turnover taken into account - Turnover of all the undertakings constituting an association of undertakings - Whether permissible

(Council Regulation No 17, Art. 15(2))

Summary

15 The Community's liability under the second paragraph of Article 215 of the EC Treaty is dependent on the concurrent presence of a number of conditions as to the unlawfulness of the acts alleged against the Community institution concerned, the fact of damage and the existence of a causal link between the conduct of the institution and the damage complained of.

There is a causal link for the purposes of the second paragraph of Article 215 of the Treaty where there is a direct causal link between the fault committed by the institution concerned and the injury pleaded, the burden of proving which falls on the applicants.

16 When a party applies to the Commission for negative clearance under Article 2 of Regulation No 17 or gives it notification under Article 4(1) thereof for the purpose of obtaining an exemption, the Commission may not defer defining its position indefinitely. In the interests of legal certainty and of ensuring adequate judicial protection, it is required to adopt a decision or, if such a letter has been requested, to send a formal letter within a reasonable time. Similarly, when the Commission receives an application under Article 3(1) of Regulation No 17 alleging infringement of Article 85 and/or Article 86 of the Treaty, it is required to adopt a definitive position on the complaint within a reasonable time. It is a general principle of Community law that the Commission must act within a reasonable time in adopting decisions following administrative proceedings relating to competition policy.

The question whether the duration of an administrative proceeding is reasonable must be determined in relation to the particular circumstances of each case and, in particular, its context, the various procedural stages followed by the Commission, the conduct of the parties in the course of the procedure, the complexity of the case and its importance for the various parties involved.

17 Article 19(1) of Regulation No 17 and Articles 2 and 4 of Regulation No 99/63, which apply the audi alteram partem principle, require that undertakings concerned by a proceeding for the establishment of infringements of the rules on competition are afforded the opportunity, in the course of the administrative procedure, of effectively making known their views on all the objections dealt with in the decision.

In accordance with that requirement, when the Commission proposes to deal in its decision with objections not covered by the first statement of objections, it is required to send a second such statement to the undertakings concerned.

18 The Commission is entitled to apply different degrees of priority to the cases submitted to it. If, following notification of an arrangement, it takes the view that the practices notified to it cannot be exempted under Article 85(3) of the Treaty, it may, when assessing the degree of priority to be given to the notification, take into account the fact that a national court has already caused the infringements in question to cease.

19 The statement of the reasons for an act is indispensable for determining the exact meaning of what is stated in the operative part.

20 A body governed by private law which sets up a certification system for crane-hire firms to which affiliation is optional, establishes independently the criteria which certified firms must satisfy and issues a certificate only on payment of a subscription must be classified as an undertaking within the meaning of Article 85(1) of the Treaty since, in the context of competition law, that classification applies to every entity engaged in an economic activity, regardless of its legal status and the way in which it is financed.

21 The assessment as to whether conduct is in accordance with Article 85(1) of the Treaty is to be carried out in the legal and economic context of the case.

Accordingly, when the Commission examines a certification system for crane-hire firms under which certified firms are prohibited from hiring cranes from uncertified firms, it is entitled to establish criteria which the system must comply with in order for it to be possible for the prohibition on hiring to fall outside Article 85(1).

In that regard, the openness of the system and the acceptance of equivalent guarantees offered by other systems are pertinent criteria on which the Commission may rely in order to ascertain whether the prohibition at issue distorts competition. First, the prohibition affects significantly the competitive opportunities of uncertified firms if it is difficult to gain access to the certification system. Secondly, by preventing certified firms from calling on the services of uncertified firms even if they provide guarantees equivalent to those of the certification system, that prohibition cannot be objectively justified by an interest in maintaining the quality of the products and services ensured by the certification system; on the contrary, the failure to accept such guarantees protects certified firms from competition from uncertified firms.

22 A system of rates set up by a sector-based organization which brings together crane-hire firms in a Member State, consisting of recommended rates for the hiring of cranes by clients and internal rates applicable to hirings between members of the organization, constitutes in fact a pricing system binding the members of that organization when those rates, compliance with which is monitored, give substance to the concept of reasonable rates which members are required to charge on pain of expulsion from the organization. Where such a system enables the members of the organization, even if some of them do not always adhere to the prices set, to predict with a reasonable degree of certainty the pricing policy pursued by the other members and, in addition, it is established that the system has the object of increasing market prices, that system restricts competition for the purposes of Article 85(1) of the Treaty.

23 In order that an agreement, decision or concerted practice may affect trade between Member States it must be possible to foresee with a sufficient degree of probability on the basis of a set of factors of law or fact that it may have an influence, direct or indirect, actual or potential, on the pattern of trade between Member States such as to give rise to the fear that the achievement of a single market between Member States might be impeded.

In that regard, practices restricting competition which extend over the whole territory of a Member State have, by their very nature, the effect of reinforcing compartmentalization of national markets, thereby holding up the economic interpenetration which the Treaty is intended to bring about.

24 In order for an individual decision exempting an agreement between undertakings to be adopted, the four conditions specified in Article 85(3) of the Treaty must be satisfied cumulatively, so that failure to fulfil one of those four conditions is sufficient for the exemption to have to be refused. It is incumbent upon the notifying undertakings to provide the Commission with evidence that those four conditions are met.

The review undertaken by the Community judicature of the complex economic appraisals made by the Commission when it exercises the discretion conferred on it by Article 85(3) of the Treaty, with regard to each of the four conditions laid down in that provision, is necessarily limited to verifying whether the rules on procedure and on the giving of reasons have been complied with, whether the facts have been accurately stated and whether there has been any manifest error of assessment or a misuse of powers.

25 The purpose of the statement of the reasons on which an individual decision is based is to give the person concerned sufficient information to enable him to ascertain whether the decision is well founded or whether it is vitiated by a defect which may permit its legality to be contested, and to enable the Community judicature to carry out its review of the legality of the decision. The extent of that obligation depends on the nature of the measure in question and on the context in which it was adopted. Accordingly, the Commission must explain its reasoning when it adopts a decision which goes appreciably further than its previous decisions.

While the Commission is required under Article 190 of the Treaty to give reasons for its decisions by setting out the circumstances justifying their adoption and the legal considerations which led it to adopt them, it is not required, in the case of a decision applying the rules on competition, to discuss all the matters of fact and of law raised during the administrative procedure by each party concerned.

26 The infringements of competition law which are liable to be penalized are those which are committed deliberately or negligently. It is sufficient for this that the party committing the act in question must have known that its conduct would result in a restriction of competition.

The Commission exercises its discretion in the specific context of each case when deciding whether it is appropriate to impose a fine in order to penalize the infringement found and to protect the effectiveness of competition law.

27 The amount of a fine imposed for breach of the Treaty's competition rules must be fixed at a level which takes account of the circumstances and the gravity of the infringement and the latter is to be appraised taking into account in particular the nature of the restrictions on competition.

28 The use of the general term `infringement' in Article 15(2) of Regulation No 17, inasmuch as it covers without distinction agreements, concerted practices and decisions of associations of undertakings, indicates that the upper limits for fines laid down in that provision apply in the same way to agreements and concerted practices as to decisions of associations of undertakings. It follows that the upper limit of 10% of turnover must be calculated by reference to the turnover of each of the undertakings which are parties to those agreements and concerted practices or of the undertakings, as a whole, which were members of the said associations of undertakings, at least where, by virtue of its internal rules, the association is able to bind its members. The correctness of this view is borne out by the fact that the influence which an association of undertakings has been able to exert on the market does not depend on its own `turnover', which discloses neither its size nor its economic power, but rather on the turnover of its members, which constitutes an indication of its size and economic power.