Langnese-Iglo GmbH v Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 1998-10-01
26 In that connection it must be observed at the outset that, according to settled case-law of the Court of Justice, by virtue of Article 168a of the EC Treaty and the first paragraph of Article 51 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice, an appeal may be based only on grounds relating to the infringement of rules of law, to the exclusion of any appraisal of the facts (see, in particular, Case C-283/90 P Vidrányi v Commission [1991] ECR I-4339, paragraph 12, the order of 17 September 1996 in Case C-19/95 P San Marco v Commission [1996] ECR I-4435, paragraphs 36 and 39, and Case C-7/95 P Deere v Commission [1998] ECR I-3111, paragraphs 18 and 21).
38 With regard more particularly to matters of evidence, it must be made clear that it is for the Court of First Instance alone to assess the value which should be attached to the evidence adduced before it, save where the sense of that evidence has been distorted (see in that connection the order in San Marco v Commission, cited above, paragraph 40, Case C-53/92 P Hilti v Commission [1994] ECR I-667, paragraph 42, and Deere v Commission, cited above, paragraph 22).  However, Langnese-Iglo has put forward no solid argument to show that the Court of First Instance distorted the sense of the evidence.
48 In view of that lack of precision, to which, moreover, the Commission has drawn attention, the Court of Justice is not in a position to examine the merits of this part of the plea.  It must be borne in mind that an appeal must indicate precisely the contested elements of the judgment which the appellant seeks to have set aside and also the legal arguments specifically advanced in support of the appeal (see, in particular, the order in San Marco v Commission, cited above, paragraph 37, and the judgment in Deere v Commission, cited above, paragraph 19).
55 To allow a party to put forward for the first time before the Court of Justice a plea in law which it has not raised before the Court of First Instance would be to allow it to bring before the Court of Justice, whose jurisdiction in appeals is limited, a case of wider ambit than that which came before the Court of First Instance.  In an appeal the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice is thus confined to review of the findings of law on the pleas argued before the Court of First Instance (see, to that effect, Case C-136/92 P Commission v Brazzelli Lualdi and Others [1994] ECR I-1981, paragraph 59).
74 It must first be noted that, for the reasons set out in paragraphs 205 to 209 of the contested judgment, the Court of First Instance correctly decided that the Commission was not entitled to prohibit Langnese-Iglo from concluding any exclusive purchasing agreements in the future.  The Court of First Instance's assessment is, moreover, consistent with the case-law of the Court of Justice to the effect that Article 3 of Regulation No 17 is to be applied according to the nature of the infringement found (see Joined Cases 6/73 and 7/73 Commercial Solvents v Commission [1974] ECR 223, paragraph 45, and Joined Cases C-241/91 P and C-242/91 P RTP and ITP v Commission [1995] ECR I-743, paragraph 90).
78 It must also be observed that the principle of legal certainty requires that every act of the administration which produces legal effects should be clear and precise so that the person concerned may know without ambiguity what are his rights and obligations and may take steps accordingly (see, to that effect, with regard to legislative measures of general scope, Joined Cases 92/87 and 93/87 Commission v France and United Kingdom [1989] ECR 405, paragraph 22).