Action brought on 22 September 2008 - Stowarzyszenie Autorów 'ZAiKS' v Commission

(Case T-398/08)

Language of the case: Polish

Parties

Applicant: Stowarzyszenie Autorów 'ZAiKS' (Warsaw, Poland) (represented by: B. Borkowska and M. Błeszyński, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

annul Article 3 and Article 4(2) and (3) (to the extent to which those provisions refer to Article 3) of the Commission decision of [16] July 2008 relating to a proceeding under Article 81 of the EC Treaty and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement (Case COMP/C2/38.698 - CISAC);

order the Commission to pay the applicant's costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In this case the applicant is seeking the partial annulment of the Commission decision of [16] July 2008 relating to a proceeding under Article 81 of the EC Treaty and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement (Case COMP/C2/38.698 - CISAC) to the extent to which it concerns concerted practices with regard to the conditions governing the administration of rights to the public performance of musical works and the granting of corresponding licences by collecting societies and which take the form of restrictions on membership applied in the reciprocal representation agreements as envisaged in the CISAC model contract (model contract of the Conféderation Internationale des Sociétés d'Auteurs et Compositeurs - International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers - CISAC) or as applied in practice.

The applicant bases its action on the following pleas:

absence of a balanced appraisal of all the conditions essential for the correct interpretation of the concept of 'concerted practices' as a result of an incomplete regard for the facts of the case and a lack of regard for all of the inseparably linked elements constituting the collective administration of copyright;

defective appraisal of the grounds on which the principle of territoriality chosen in the reciprocal representation agreements is based;

defective indication and assessment of the consequences of a potential alteration of the system obtaining hitherto for the collective administration of copyright;

lack of appraisal of the totality of evidence in the case as a result of the failure to take account of the facts put forward by the applicant with regard to the particular features of the activity of the authors' association ZAiKS and the provisions of Polish law in the area of the collective administration of copyright.

____________