CELEX: C2001/289/69
Language: en
Date: 2001-10-13 00:00:00
Title: Case T-169/01: Action brought on 24 July 2001 by SAGEM against the Commission of the European Communities

13.10.2001             EN                       Official Journal of the European Communities                                      C 289/29
Action brought on 23 July 2001 by Lucchini S.p.A. against                       been considered only environmental to be production
       the Commission of the European Communities                               investments and thus applied rules which were not
                                                                                applicable to the contested investments. Once it had
                                                                                established that the investments notified related only to
                         (Case T-166/01)                                        the environment and not to production, the Commission
                                                                                should have made its decision on the basis only of the
                                                                                scheme of rules in Article 3 of the steel aid code which is
                         (2001/C 289/68)                                        applicable in this case and not of the rules which govern
                                                                                the Commission’s monitoring activities in cases in which
                                                                                there are production investments as well as environmen-
                    (Language of the case: Italian)                             tal investments.
An action against the Commission of the European Communi-                  —    Internal inconsistencies in the reasoning of the Com-
ties was brought before the Court of Justice of the European                    mission which, while holding the investments notified to
Communities on 23 July 2001 by Lucchini S.p.A., represented                     be merely in production, criticised the Italian authorities
by Giovanni Vezzoli.                                                            for not making any distinction between production costs
                                                                                and environment costs, a distinction which it could make
                                                                                only if the investments were held by the Commission to
                                                                                be environmental.
The applicant claims that the Court should:
—     as regards its main claim on the substance: annul Article 1          —    Failure to state reasons, in so far as the defendant did not
      of the Commission Decision of 21 December 2000                            furnish any objective account of the reasons why it
      (C(2000) 4368, OJ 2001 L 163 of 20 June 2001), where                      reached the conclusions which led it to consider the aid
      the Commission declared the State aid which Italy was                     notified incompatible with the common market, nor
      planning to implement for Lucchini SpA amounting to                       of the reasons why it considered that the contested
      ITL 13,5 billion (EUR 6,98 million) to be incompatible                    investments related to production installations rather
      with the common market;                                                   than environmental structures.
—     in any event: order the Commission to bear the costs.                —    Differences in the treatment of the applicant and that of
                                                                                other undertakings in certain important points of the
                                                                                reasoning of the Commission relating to aid granted in
                                                                                similar cases.
Pleas in law and main arguments
The contested decision closes a procedure which began with
the formal notification of the Commission by Italy under
Article 3 of the steel aid code of a plan for state aid for
Lucchini SpA for investments for environmental purposes to
be made at its plant in Piombino. In that procedure, the
defendant maintained that the investments notified were
primarily for the purposes of production rather than of
benefit to the environment and were moreover investments                   Action brought on 24 July 2001 by SAGEM against the
necessitated by other production investments for the modern-                       Commission of the European Communities
isation of the plant at Piombino and that, as such, they were
not eligible for State aid programmes.
                                                                                                   (Case T-169/01)
The applicant relies on the following pleas in support of its
claims:                                                                                            (2001/C 289/69)
—     Misuse of powers by reason of misrepresentation of the                                 (Language of the case: English)
      facts in so far as the Commission made a manifest error
      of assessment in evaluating without stating any reasons
      the investments notified, described by the Commission
      itself as being for both production and environmental                An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
      purposes.                                                            ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
                                                                           European Communities on 24 July 2001 by SAGEM SA,
—     Breach and misapplication of rules of law, in so far as the          having its registered office in Paris, represented by Dominique
      defendant considered investments which should have                   Berlin of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Paris (France).
 ---pagebreak--- C 289/30                EN                    Official Journal of the European Communities                                  13.10.2001
The applicant claims that the Court should:                                   —      compared inappropriately the technical perform-
                                                                                     ances of the tenders and evaluated them on different
                                                                                     financial grounds, and
—     annul the Commission’s decision not to accept the
      SAGEM’s tender submitted for the Eurodac AFIS Central
      Unit;                                                                   —      amended the purpose of the benchmark tests, added
                                                                                     a rule to compare the variable costs of the tenders
—     annul the Commission’s decision to award the contract                          and took into account only a few items of the
      for the Eurodac AFIS Central unit to BULL.                                     financial compulsory reply form, although the Ten-
                                                                                     dering Specifications provided that all the items
                                                                                     were to be taken into account.
Pleas in law and main arguments                                          —    Manifest error of assessment. It is pointed out in this
                                                                              regard that the Commission assessed the tenders by using
                                                                              different bases. Concerning the benchmark tests, in
                                                                              particular the performance test, the Commission con-
The applicant in the present case, a company incorporated                     cluded that BULL’s solution was faster than the applicant’s
under French law, seeks the annulment of the Commission’s                     whereas none of the tenderers used the same number of
decisions rejecting the tender which it submitted in response                 pieces of equipment. Concerning the financial evaluation,
to invitation to tender no. DG JAI A2/2000/002 concerning                     the Commission used different bases to compare the
the contract for the ‘EURODAC’ Automated Fingerprint identi-                  operational support proposed by the tenders.
fication System (AFIS) Central Unit, and accepting the tender
submitted by BULL.
In support of its claims the applicant puts forward the
following pleas in law:
—     infringement of the duty to state the reasons on which
      challenged decisions are based. It alleges in this respect
      that the Commission                                                Action brought on 24 July 2001 by Vieira Argentina SA
                                                                           against the Commission of the European Communities
      —     did not establish whether the qualifying criteria had
            been fulfilled;
                                                                                                  (Case T-170/01)
      —     did not provide the detailed marks corresponding to
            the weighting of each technical criterion;                                            (2001/C 289/70)
      —     provided very partial results of the benchmark tests;                           (Language of the case: Spanish)
      —     could not allege protection of business secrets, and
                                                                         An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
      —     provided unclear and equivocal explanations, as              ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
            regards both the selected tenderer’s identity and the        European Communities on 24 July 2001 by Vieira Argentina
            question relating to high matching accuracy.                 SA, a company with registered offices in Buenos Aires,
                                                                         represented by D. Ramón Garcı́a-Gallardo and Marı́a Dolores
                                                                         Domı́nguez Pérez, Lawyers.
—     infringement of principles of equal treatment and of
      transparency, in as much as the Commission:
      —     gave the tenderers very different information relating       The applicant claims that the Court should:
            to the same technical requirements of the EURO-
            DAC AFIS Central Unit;
                                                                         —    declare that, by failing to define its position within a
                                                                              period of two months from the date when notice was
      —     amended the technical criterion relating to high                  given, being 18 May 2001, the Commission failed to
            matching accuracy during the evaluation procedure;                fulfil its obligations;