Case T‑558/08

Eni SpA

v

European Commission

(Competition — Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Market for paraffin waxes — Decision finding an infringement of Article 81 EC — Price-fixing — Evidence of the infringement — 2006 Guidelines on the method of setting fines — Equal treatment — Aggravating circumstances — Repeated infringement — Obligation to state reasons — Mitigating circumstances — Substantially limited participation — Infringement committed as a result of negligence — Rights of the defence — Unlimited jurisdiction)

Summary — Judgment of the General Court (Third Chamber), 12 December 2014

1.      Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Agreements between undertakings — Concept — Joint intention as to the conduct to be adopted on the market — Included — Pursuance of negotiations on certain aspects of the restriction — Irrelevant

(Art. 81(1) EC)

2.      Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Concerted practice — Concept — Coordination and cooperation incompatible with the obligation on each undertaking to determine independently its conduct on the market — Exchange of information between competitors — Anti competitive object or effect — Presumption — Conditions

(Art. 81(1) EC)

3.      Competition — Administrative procedure — Commission decision finding an infringement — Burden of proof — Proof adduced by a number of different manifestations of the infringement — Lawfulness — Reliance on a body of evidence — Degree of evidential value necessary as regards items of evidence viewed in isolation — Documentary proof — Criteria — Reliability of evidence produced — Evidential obligations on undertakings disputing the existence of the infringement

(Art. 81(1) EC)

4.      EU law — Principles — Fundamental rights — Presumption of innocence — Procedures in competition matters — Applicability — Scope — Consequences

(Art. 81(1) EC)

5.      Competition — Administrative procedure — Commission decision finding an infringement — Burden of proving the infringement and its duration on the Commission — Probative value of voluntary statements incriminating an undertaking by the main participants in a cartel in order to benefit from application of the Leniency Notice — Statements going against the interests of the said undertaking — High probative value

(Art. 81(1) EC; Commission Notice 2002/C 45/03)

6.      Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Agreements between undertakings — Concept — Participation in meetings having an anti-competitive object — Included — Condition — Undertaking concerned not distancing itself from the decisions adopted — Criteria for assessment

(Art. 81(1) EC)

7.      Competition — Administrative procedure — Commission decision finding an infringement consisting in the conclusion of an anti-competitive agreement — Decision relying on documentary evidence — Penalised undertaking having no commercial interest in the agreement — Irrelevant

(Art. 81(1) EC)

8.      Competition — Fines — Amount — Determination — Discretion of the Commission — Judicial review — Unlimited jurisdiction of the EU judicature — Scope

(Art. 229 EC; Council Regulation No 1/2003, Arts 23(2), and 31)

9.      Competition — Fines — Amount — Determination — Criteria — Gravity of the infringement — Determination of the fine proportionately to the assessment factors for the gravity of the infringement

(Art. 81(1) EC; Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 49(3); Council Regulation No 1/2003, Art. 23(2) and (3); Commission Notice 2006/C 210/02)

10.    Competition — Fines — Amount — Determination — Principle of equal treatment — Differences between undertakings fining themselves in an objectively different situation — Lawfulness

(Council Regulation No 1/2003, Art. 23(2); Commission Notice 2006/C 210/02)

11.    Competition — Fines — Amount — Determination — Criteria — Gravity of the infringement — Mitigating circumstances — Passive role — Substantially reduced participation — Effective removal from application of the cartel — Criteria for assessment

(Council Regulation No 1/2003, Art. 23(2) and (3); Commission Notices 98/C 9/03, point 3, first indent, and 2006/C 210/02, point 29, third indent)

12.    Acts of the institutions — Statement of reasons — Obligation — Scope — Assessment of the duty to state reasons by reference to the circumstances of the case

(Art. 253 EC)

13.    Competition — Fines — Amount — Determination — Criteria — Gravity of the infringement — Aggravating circumstances — Repeated infringement — Parent company not having been penalised by an earlier decision against a subsidiary or having been the addressee of a statement of objections in that context — Not included

(Council Regulation No 1/2003, Art. 23(2); Commission Notice 2006/C 210/02, point 28, first indent)

14.    Competition — EU rules — Infringements — Attribution — Parent company and subsidiaries — Economic unit — Criteria for assessment — Presumption that a parent company exerts a decisive influence over its wholly-owned subsidiaries — Rebuttable presumption — Evidential obligations of the company seeking to rebut that presumption

(Art. 81 EC)

1.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 25-27, 133)

2.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 28, 29, 149, 150)

3.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 30, 34-45, 65, 116, 143, 251)

4.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 31-33)

5.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 46-51, 63, 86)

6.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 69, 70, 104, 106)

7.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 111-113)

8.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 160-162, 314)

9.      See the text of the decision.

(see paras 165-170, 175, 186)

10.    See the text of the decision.

(see paras 181-185)

11.    According to the third indent of section 29 of the 2006 Guidelines for the calculation of fines imposed pursuant to Article 23(2)(a) of Regulation No 1/2003, the basic amount of the fine may be reduced where the Commission finds that mitigating circumstances exist, in particular where the undertaking concerned provides evidence that its involvement in the infringement is substantially limited and thus demonstrates that, during the period in which it was party to the offending agreements, it actually avoided applying them by adopting competitive conduct on the market. Those two elements constitute cumulative conditions. According to the same provision, the mere fact that an undertaking participated in an infringement for a shorter duration than others will not be regarded as a mitigating circumstance since that will already be reflected in the basic amount.

According to the third indent of point 3 of the Guidelines on the method of setting fines imposed pursuant to Article 15(2) of Regulation No 17 and Article 65(5) of the ECSC Treaty, an ‘exclusively passive or “follow-my-leader” role’ played by an undertaking in the infringement may constitute an attenuating circumstance. The concept of ‘substantially limited involvement’ in the 2006 Guidelines must be interpreted in a manner analogous to that of the ‘exclusive passive role’ in the 1998 Guidelines.

Thus a passive role implied that the undertaking concerned had adopted a ‘low profile’, that is to say, that it did not actively participate in the creation of an anti-competitive agreement or agreements. Similarly, the factors which may indicate that an undertaking has played a passive role in a cartel include where its participation in cartel meetings is significantly more sporadic than that of the ordinary members of the cartel, where it enters the market affected by the infringement at a late stage, regardless of the length of its involvement in the infringement, or where a representative of another undertaking which has participated in the infringement makes an express declaration to that effect. among the factors likely to demonstrate an undertaking’s passive role in a cartel, significantly more sporadic participation at meetings than that of the other ordinary members of the cartel can be taken into account, as well as the undertaking’s late entry on the market which was subject of the infringement, independently of the duration of its participation in the infringement, and also the existence of express statements to that effect made by representatives of other undertakings which participated in the infringement. The fact that other undertakings participating in a single cartel may have been more active than a given participant does not, however, necessarily imply that the latter had an exclusively passive or follow-my-leader role. Only complete passivity could be taken into account as a factor, and it must be proved by the party alleging it. Such complete passivity cannot be inferred from the fact that the impugned undertaking did not itself organise secret anti-competitive meetings.

Likewise, the fact that an undertaking which has been proved to have participated in collusion on prices with its competitors did not behave on the market in the manner agreed with its competitors is not necessarily a matter which must be taken into account as a mitigating circumstance when determining the amount of the fine to be imposed. An undertaking which despite colluding with its competitors follows a more or less independent policy on the market may simply be trying to exploit the cartel for its own benefit. In that context, it is necessary to determine whether such circumstances are capable of showing that, during the period in which the applicant was party to the offending agreements, it actually avoided implementing them by adopting competitive conduct on the market or, at the very least, whether it clearly and substantially breached the obligations relating to the implementation of the cartel to the point of disrupting its very operation.

(see paras 189-191, 195, 196, 215, 216, 245, 246)

12.    See the text of the decision.

(see para. 234)

13.    According to section 28 of the 2006 Guidelines on the method of setting fines imposed pursuant to Article 23(2)(a) of Regulation No 1/2003, the basic amount of the fine may be increased where the Commission finds that there are aggravating circumstances. One of the aggravating circumstances is repeated infringement.

By virtue of the principle of respect for the rights of the defence, the Commission cannot be entitled to decide, when making a determination as to the aggravating circumstance of repeated infringement, that an undertaking should be held liable for a previous infringement in relation to which it was not penalised by a Commission and in the establishment of which it was not the addressee of a statement of objections. Such an undertaking was not given an opportunity, in the procedure leading to the adoption of the decision establishing the previous infringement, to make representations with a view to disputing that it formed an economic unit with certain other companies to which the previous decision was addressed. That conclusion appears all the more valid since, while it is true that the principle of proportionality requires that the time that has elapsed between the infringement at issue and a previous breach of the competition rules be taken into account in assessing the undertaking’s tendency to infringe those rules, the Commission cannot be bound by any limitation period when reaching a finding of repeated infringement and such a finding may therefore be reached several years after a finding of infringement, at a time when the undertaking concerned would, in any event, be incapable of disputing the existence of such an economic unit.

Finally, it cannot be accepted that, where a parent company owns almost the entire share capital of its subsidiary, that parent company also becomes the addressee of the warning which is directed towards its subsidiary as a result of a previous Commission decision penalising the latter for an infringement of competition law. Whilst it would be reasonable to assume that a parent company would actually have knowledge of a previous Commission decision addressed to a subsidiary of which it owned almost the entire share capital, such knowledge cannot remedy the absence of any finding in the previous decision that the parent company and the subsidiary form an economic unit reached for the purpose of imputing to the parent company liability for the previous infringement and increasing the fines imposed on the parent company for repeated infringement.

(see paras 274, 295-298)

14.    See the text of the decision.

(see paras 282-285)