CELEX: C2000/149/64
Language: en
Date: 2000-05-27 00:00:00
Title: Case T-5/00: Action brought on 17 January 2000 by Nederlandse Federatieve Vereniging voor de Groothandel op Elektrotechnisch Gebied against the Commission of the European Communities

27.5.2000             EN                      Official Journal of the European Communities                                      C 149/33
Murphy, Solicitor, 3 King’s Bench Walk, Inner Temple, London             — in the further alternative, reduce the fine imposed in Article
v Commission of the European Communities (Agent: R. Lyal)                    5(1) of that decision to the sum of EUR 1 000;
— application for compensation for the non-material loss
alleged to have been suffered by the applicant as a result of the
Commission’s alleged failure to provide a national court with
information in accordance with its obligations under the EC              — order the Commission to pay the costs.
Treaty — the Court of First Instance (Fourth Chamber),
composed of: V. Tiili, President, R.M. Moura Ramos and P.
Mengozzi, Judges; H. Jung, Registrar, has given an order on
16 March 2000, in which it orders the following:
                                                                         Pleas in law and principal arguments
1. The action is dismissed.
2. The applicant is ordered to pay the costs.
                                                                         The applicant is a sectorial association established in 1918 to
                                                                         protect the common interests of stockkeeping wholesalers of
(1) OJ C 34 of 5.2.2000.                                                 electrotechnical products. In 1995 it had 52 members, includ-
                                                                         ing various larger undertakings and numerous smaller whole-
                                                                         salers. In response to a complaint submitted in 1991, the
                                                                         Commission in 1999 adopted a decision in which it found
                                                                         that the applicant had infringed Article 81(1) EC by entering
                                                                         into a collective exclusive dealing arrangement intended to
                                                                         prevent supplies to non-members of the FEG, on the basis of
                                                                         an agreement with the Nederlandse Agentenvereniging op
                                                                         Elektrotechnisch Gebied (‘NAVEG’) and of practices concerted
                                                                         with suppliers not represented in NAVEG. The Commission
                                                                         further found that the applicant had infringed Article 81(1) EC
Action brought on 17 January 2000 by Nederlandse                         by directly and indirectly restricting the freedom of its
Federatieve Vereniging voor de Groothandel op Elektro-                   members to determine their selling prices independently. On
technisch Gebied against the Commission of the European                  account of those infringements, a fine of EUR 4.4 million was
                          Communities                                    imposed on the applicant. The applicant seeks annulment of
                                                                         the decision on the following grounds. Since it took the
                                                                         Commission more than eight years to adopt that decision, it
                           (Case T-5/00)                                 infringed the principle that decisions must invariably be given
                                                                         within a reasonable period. Furthermore, the rights of the
                                                                         defence have been violated, in that the Commission bases
                         (2000/C 149/64)                                 various essential elements of its argument on documents
                                                                         which were not mentioned in the statement of objections. In
                                                                         addition, the applicant claims that the Commission has
                                                                         infringed Article 81(1) EC in a number of respects. First, it
                   (Language of the case: Dutch)
                                                                         based its decision on an incorrect delineation of the relevant
                                                                         market. Second, it wrongly inferred from the available factual
An action against the Commission of the European Communi-                material that the applicant had infringed the notification rules
ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the               by entering into a collective exclusive dealing arrangement
European Communities on 17 January 2000 by Nederlandse                   intended to prevent supplies to non-members of the FEG. It
Federatieve Vereniging voor de Groothandel op Elektrotech-               also wrongly inferred from the factual material that, by
nisch Gebied (FEG), established in The Hague, represented by             concluding horizontal pricing agreements, FEG had infringed
E.H. Pijnacker Hordijk and S.B. Noë, of the law firm De Brauw            the notification rules. In the alternative, the applicant claims
Blackstone Westbroek NV, The Hague, with an address for                  that the Commission has infringed Article 15(2) of Regulation
service in Luxembourg at the Chambers of M. Loesch, 11 Rue               No 17, by imposing on the applicant, in the light of the
Goethe.                                                                  circumstances of the case, a fine of EUR 4.4 million.
The applicant claims that the Court should:
                                                                         (1) OJ L 39 of 14.2.2000.
— annul the Commission’s decision of 26 October 1999 (1)
    concerning a proceeding pursuant to Article 81 of the EC
    Treaty in Case IV/33.884 — Nederlandse Federatieve
    Vereniging voor de Groothandel op Elektrotechnisch Ge-
    bied and Technische Unie;
— in the alternative, annul Article 5(1) of that decision;