Action brought on 31 July 2013 – Orange v Commission

(Case T-402/13)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Orange (Paris, France) (represented by: J.-P. Gunther and A. Giraud, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

annul the contested decision;

order the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

By the present action, the applicant seeks annulment of the Commission’s decisions of 25 and 27 June 2013 addressed to France Télécom, Orange and all the companies directly or indirectly controlled by them, ordering them to undergo an inspection pursuant to Article 20(4) of Council Regulation No 1/2003. ¹ Those decisions were taken in the context of proceedings under Article 102 TFEU and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement concerning the sector providing internet connectivity services (Case AT.40090).

In support of the action, the applicant relies on two pleas in law.

First plea in law, alleging infringement of the principles of necessity and proportionality, in that the Commission ordered an inspection in relation to practices which were very similar to those covered by a decision delivered by the French competition authority only nine months earlier, even though the French competition authority found no anti-competitive conduct on the part of Orange. The applicant claims that, at the time of the inspection, the Commission did not seek additional information to that which it already had at its disposal, something which it ought to have done in accordance with the case-law in this area.

Second plea in law, alleging that the contested decisions are arbitrary, in that the Commission does not have sufficiently serious and detailed grounds for taking a measure as intrusive as an inspection.

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¹ Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Articles [101 TFEU] and [102 TFEU] (OJ 2003 L 1, p. 1).