European Commission v Planet AE.
Date: 2012-12-19
56. As regards the argument put forward by the Commission regarding the General Court’s failure to examine the evidence produced by the parties, it must be borne in mind that it is clear from Article 256 TFEU and the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice that the General Court has exclusive jurisdiction, first, to find the facts, except where the substantive inaccuracy of its findings is apparent from the documents submitted to it and, second, to assess those facts. When the General Court has found or assessed the facts, the Court of Justice has jurisdiction under Article 256 TFEU to review the legal characterisation of those facts and the legal conclusions it has drawn from them (see, in particular, Case C-551/03 P General Motors v Commission [2006] ECR I-3173, paragraph 51, and Joined Cases C-101/07 P and C-110/07 P Coop de France bétail et viande and Others  v Commission  [2008] ECR I-10193, paragraph 58).
57. Thus, the Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to establish the facts or, in principle, to examine the evidence which the General Court accepted in support of those facts. Provided that the evidence has been properly obtained and the general principles of law and the rules of procedure in relation to the burden of proof and the taking of evidence have been observed, it is for the General Court alone to assess the value which should be attached to the evidence produced to it. Save where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted, that appraisal does not therefore constitute a point of law which is subject as such to review by the Court of Justice (see, in particular, General Motors v Commission , paragraph 52, and Coop de France bétail et viande and Others  v Commission , paragraph 59).
63. It must be observed that the question whether the grounds of a judgment of the General Court are contradictory or inadequate is a question of law which is amenable, as such, to judicial review on appeal (see, inter alia, Joined Cases C-120/06 P and C-121/06 P FIAMM and Others  v Council and Commission  [2008] ECR I-6513, paragraph 90).
64. According to settled case-law, the statement of the reasons on which a judgment is based must clearly and unequivocally disclose the General Court’s thinking, so that the persons concerned can be apprised of the justification for the decision taken and the Court of Justice can exercise its power of review (see Case C-259/96 P Council v de Nil and Impens  [1998] I-2915, paragraphs 32 and 33, and Case C-449/98 P IECC  v Commission [2001] ECR I-3875, paragraph 70).
66. Accordingly, it must be held that the reasoning followed by the General Court in paragraphs 49 to 51 of the order under appeal is in itself clear and comprehensible and that it is capable of constituting grounds for the conclusion which it reaches.
90. According to settled case-law, complaints directed against a ground included in the judgment purely for the sake of completeness cannot lead to the judgment being set aside and are therefore nugatory (Joined Cases C-189/02 P, C-202/02 P, C-205/02 P to C-208/02 P and C-213/02 P Dansk Rørindustri and Others  v Commission [2005] ECR I-5425, paragraph 148).
94. As is clear from paragraph 37 of the order under appeal, an action for annulment is available, according to settled case-law, in the case of all measures adopted by the institutions, whatever their nature or form, which are intended to have binding legal effects capable of affecting the interests of the applicant by bringing about a distinct change in his legal position (see, inter alia, Case 60/81 IBM v Commission [1981] ECR 2639, paragraph 9; Case C-521/06 Athinaïki Techniki v Commission  [2008] ECR I-5829, paragraph 29, and Case C-362/08 P Internationaler Hilfsfonds  v Commission  [2010] ECR I-669, paragraph 51).