Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Court of First Instance — Organisation — Composition of the Chambers — Chamber composed of five judges — Reduction in the number of judges taking part in the deliberations to three because two judges were unable to attend — Volume of the case-file — Not relevant — ( ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 18 and 44; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Arts 32 and 33(1) and (5))

2. Procedure — Measures of inquiry — Request for production of a document — Discretion of the Court of First Instance — (Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Arts 49 and 65(b))

3. Appeals — Grounds — Erroneous assessment of the facts — Assessment of the probative value of a document — Inadmissible — Appeal dismissed — ( Art. 32d(1) CS; ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51)

4. Acts of the institutions — Statement of reasons — Obligation — Scope — Decision imposing fines for infringement of the competition rules — Merely desirable that the method of calculating the fine be disclosed — ( ECSC Treaty, Arts 15, first para., and 65(5))

Summary

1. In accordance with the second paragraph of Article 18 of the ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice, which also applies to the Court of First Instance pursuant to Article 44 of that Statute, decisions of the Court of First Instance are valid only if an uneven number of its members is sitting in the deliberations, and decisions of Chambers composed of three or five judges are valid only if they are taken by three judges. Article 32 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance sets out how those rules are to be applied.

The volume of the case-file cannot justify excluding application of those provisions where, in a chamber comprising five judges, two of the judges of whom a Chamber is initially composed are definitively prevented from exercising their functions as a result of the expiry of their mandates.

In that regard, the relevant time in determining whether the provisions of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance relating to deliberations have been complied with is, in accordance with Article 33(5) of those rules, that of adoption, following final discussion, of the conclusions determining the Court's decision.

see paras 33-35

2. It is for the Community judicature to decide, in the light of the circumstances of the case and in accordance with the provisions of the Rules of Procedure on measures of inquiry, whether it is necessary for a document to be produced. As regards the Court of First Instance, it follows from Article 49 read in conjunction with Article 65(b) of its Rules of Procedure that a request for production of documents is a measure of inquiry which the Court may order at any stage of the proceedings if it deems them necessary to ascertain the truth.

see paras 41, 44

3. In principle, the assessment by the Court of First Instance of the probative value of a document may not be subjected to review by the Court in appeal proceedings. As is clear from Article 32d(1) CS and Article 51 of the ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice, an appeal lies on a point of law only. The Court of First Instance therefore has sole jurisdiction to find and appraise the relevant facts and to assess the evidence, except where those facts and that evidence have been distorted.

see para. 43

4. The purpose of the obligation to state the reasons on which an individual decision is based is to enable the Court to review the legality of the decision and to provide the person concerned with sufficient information to make it possible to ascertain whether the decision is well founded or whether it is vitiated by a defect which may permit its legality to be contested.

With regard to the obligation to state reasons for a decision imposing fines on several undertakings for an infringement of the Community competition rules, statements of figures relating to the calculation of those fines, however useful and desirable such figures may be, are not essential; in any event, the Commission cannot, by mechanical recourse to arithmetical formulas alone, divest itself of its own power of assessment.

see paras 71, 75