Case T-121/07: Action brought on 18 April 2007 — Alstom v Commission
Date: 2007-04-18
Institutions: Court of First Instance
Subjects: European Commission, France, action for annulment (EU), competition law, electrical equipment, fine, restriction on competition, restrictive trade practice

C 140/30

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

23.6.2007

Action brought on 18 April 2007 — Alstom v Commission

principle of legal certainty and the principle that penalties must
fit the offence.

(Case T-121/07)

(2007/C 140/51)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Alstom (Levallois Perret, France) (represented by:
Derenne,
and C. Guirado, lawyers)

J.
lawyer, W. Broere, Solicitor, and A. Müller-Rappard

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

— annul Articles 1(b), 2(b) and 2(c) of the contested decision;

— in the alternative, substantially reduce the fines imposed on

Alstom;

— order the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By the present action, the applicant seeks partial annulment of
Commission Decision C(2006) 6762 Final of 24 January 2007,
relating to a proceeding under Article 81 of the EC Treaty and
Article 53 EEA (Case COMP/F/38.899 — Gas Insulated Switch-
gear), concerning a cartel in the gas insulated switchgear projects
sector entailing manipulation of the bidding procedure for those
projects, price fixing, the allocation of quotas and of projects,
and exchanges of information. In the alternative, the applicant
seeks the annulment or reduction of the fine imposed on it by
the contested decision.

In support of its claims, the applicant raises eight pleas in law.

The first alleges infringement of the rules relating to judicial
protection and of the general principle of the ‘right to an effec-
tive remedy’, in that, by imposing a joint fine on two companies
which are both legally and economically independent,
the
Commission has created a situation in which any possible
benefit for the applicant of an action against the decision will
depend exclusively on the outcome of the action of an indepen-
dent third party.

The second plea alleges infringement of the legal rules applic-
able to joint and several liability, in that the Commission has
made two companies, with no legal link between them, jointly
and severally liable for the same infringement, in breach of the

By its third plea the applicant criticises the Commission for
having infringed Article 253 EC in that it did not explain how
the evidence adduced by the applicant to show that it had no
decisive influence over its wholly-owned subsidiaries were not
sufficient to rebut the presumption on this issue.

The applicant's fourth plea alleges infringement of Article 81 EC
and, in particular, of the rules relating to the imputability to
parent companies of
the infringements committed by their
subsidiaries, and also of the rules relating to the transfer of liabi-
lity for infringements.

By its fifth plea the applicant claims that the contested decision
infringes the rules applicable to the recognition of aggravating
conditions for activities of the ‘cartel ringleader’ together with
the principle of equal treatment. The applicant alleges that the
Commission was wrong to attribute the role of ringleader to the
applicant and that its role as ‘European secretary’ of the cartel
was purely administrative and was not such as to confer on it a
more important role than the roles of other members of the
cartel. Consequently, the applicant maintains that the Commis-
sion made an error of assessment, that it misapplied the applic-
able rules and that it did not give a sufficiently reasoned deci-
sion on that point.

The applicant also claims that the Commission infringed rules
of law with regard to proof of the continuity of the infringe-
ment in that it did not provide evidence relating to facts which
were sufficiently close in time to establish that the infringement
was continuous.

The seventh plea relied upon by the applicant alleges infringe-
ment of the rights of the defence in that, according to the appli-
cant, the contested decision is based on certain pieces of infor-
mation which were not contained in the Commission's state-
ment of objections, and with regard to which, the Commission
the consequences which it
did not inform the applicant of
would draw from them in its decision.

Finally, by its eighth plea, the applicant alleges that the Commis-
sion infringed the rules relating to the calculation of the basic
amount of the fines, in that the contested decision determined
the amount of the fine, for the entire period of the infringe-
ment, on the basis of the turnover achieved within the European
Economic Area, when the EEA Agreement has been in force
only from 1 January 1994.