Notice for the OJ

 

Action brought on 6 June 2003 by Bank Austria Creditanstalt AG against the Commission of the European Communities

    

    (Case T-198/03)

    Language of the case: German

An action against the Commission of the European Communities was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 6 June 2003 by Bank Austria Creditanstalt AG, Vienna (Austria), represented by C. Zschocke and J. Beninca, lawyers.

The applicant claims that the Court should:

(annul the Commission's decision 5 May 2003;

(order the defendant to pay the costs of the proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments:

On 11 June 2002 the defendant adopted a decision to impose a fine on the applicant and seven other Austrian banks in the case COMP/36.571 (Austrian Banks). The applicant brought an action against that decision. ¹

By the present action the applicant challenges the defendant's decision of 5 May 2003, in which the defendant gave notice that its decision of 11 June 2002 would be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities and on the Internet. By the contested decision, the defendant rejected the applicant's request as regards the defendant's proposed publication of the decision to impose a fine.

The applicant claims that publication of the decision to impose a fine in the form notified is inadmissible. It maintains that the decision may not be published, since Article 21(1) of Regulation No 17 does not allow decisions taken under Article 15 of Regulation No 17 to be published.

Moreover, the decision to impose a fine may not be disclosed in the non-confidential version used by the defendant, since it reproduces the decision to impose a fine word for word except for making the names of natural persons anonymous. Regulation No 17, however, allows the disclosure only of the substance of a decision which is to be made public.

The applicant furthermore maintains that the passages of the decision to impose a fine which relate to the year 1994 may not be published in any event, since those observations are not relevant to the operative part of the decision and the defendant was not competent to find that the applicant infringed Article 81 EC in the year 1994. Moreover, the publication of the decision in the Official Journal of the European Community and on the Internet in a non-confidential version infringes Regulation No 45/2001. ²

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¹ - (Case T-260/02, Bank Austria Creditanstalt v Commission (OJ 2002 C 274, p. 28).

² - (Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data (OJ 2001 L 8, p. 1).