Cabour SA and Nord Distribution Automobile SA v Arnor "SOCO" SARL, supported by Automobiles Peugeot SA and Automobiles Citroën SA.
Date: 1998-04-30
21 With a view to ruling on the admissibility of the questions, it must be borne in mind that, as the Court has consistently held, it is for the national courts alone, before which the proceedings are pending and which must assume responsibility for the judgment to be given, to determine, having regard to the particular features of each case, both the need for a preliminary ruling to enable them to give judgment and the relevance of the questions which they refer to the Court.  A request for a preliminary ruling from a national court may be rejected only if it is quite obvious that the interpretation of Community law sought by that court bears no relation to the actual nature of the case or the subject-matter of the main action (see, inter alia, Case C-143/94 Furlanis v Anas and Itinera [1995] ECR I-3633, paragraph 12). But that is not the case here.
23 Second, the fact that it may be necessary to order the defendant in the main proceedings to cease its activities in the future provides sufficient justification for interpreting the relevant provisions of Regulation No 1475/95 (see, to that effect, Case C-408/95 Eurotunnel and Others v Seafrance [1997] ECR I-0000, paragraph 24).
30 Having regard to the general principle prohibiting anticompetitive agreements laid down in Article 85(1) of the Treaty, provisions in a block exemption regulation which derogate from that principle cannot be interpreted widely and cannot be construed in such a way as to extend the effects of the regulation beyond what is necessary to protect the interests which they are intended to safeguard (Case C-70/93 BMW v ALD [1995] ECR I-3439, paragraph 28).
37 It follows that, where a dealer has failed to meet the sales target set because it is in breach of its duty to use its best endeavours, Regulation No 123/85 does not prohibit penalties, which may extend to termination of the agreement.
47 Regulation No 123/85, like Regulation No 1475/95, as regulations applying Article 85(3) of the Treaty, are limited to providing economic agents in the motor vehicle industry with certain possibilities enabling them to remove their distribution and servicing agreements from the scope of the prohibition contained in Article 85(1) despite the inclusion in those agreements of certain types of exclusivity and no-competition clauses.  However, the provisions of the exempting regulations do not compel economic agents to make use of those possibilities.  Nor do they have the effect of amending the content of such an agreement or of rendering it void where all the conditions laid down in the regulation are not satisfied (see Case 10/86 VAG France v Magne [1986] ECR 4071, paragraph 12).
48 Where an agreement does not satisfy all the conditions provided for by an exempting regulation, it will be caught by the prohibition laid down by Article 85(1) only if its object or effect is perceptibly to restrict competition within the common market and it is capable of affecting trade between Member States (see Case 56/65 Société Technique Minière v Maschinenbau Ulm [1966] ECR 235, and Joined Cases 56/64 and 58/64 Consten and Grundig v Commission [1966] ECR 299).
51 If the national court should declare one or more of the clauses in the contract void, it must be added that, as the Court has held (see VAG France, cited above, paragraph 14), the consequences, for all other parts of the agreement or for other obligations flowing from it, of the fact that those contractual provisions which are incompatible with Article 85(1) are automatically void are not a matter for Community law.  It is therefore also for the national court to determine, in accordance with the relevant national law, the extent and consequences, for the contractual relation as a whole, of the nullity of certain contractual provisions by virtue of Article 85(2).