Action brought on 2 August 2013 – Companhia Previdente and Socitrel v Commission
(Case T-409/13)
Language of the case: Portuguese
Parties
Applicants: COMPANHIA PREVIDENTE – Sociedade de Controle de Participações Financeiras, SA (Lisbon, Portugal) and SOCITREL – Sociedade Industrial de Trefilaria, SA (Trofa, Portugal) (represented by: D. Proença de Carvalho, J. Caimoto Duarte, F. Proença de Carvalho and T. Luísa Faria, lawyers)
Defendant: European Commission
Form of order sought
The applicants claim that the Court should:
declare the action admissible and well founded;
annul Decision D/2013/048425 of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition of 24 May 2013, relating to the refusal to reduce, on grounds of inability to pay, the fine imposed on SOCITREL in a proceeding for infringement of Article 101 TFEU and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement, which also declared COMPANHIA PREVIDENTE jointly and severally liable for payment of that fine;
impose a reduced fine on the applicants as a result of their inability to pay the fine;
Pleas in law and main arguments
The applicants rely on two pleas in law which, in essence, consist of the following:
First plea in law: infringement by the Commission of the obligation to state reasons under Article 296 TFEU, in that it disregarded the evidence submitted by the COMPANHIA PREVIDENTE group relating to its lack of finances.
The applicants claim that Article 296 TFEU was infringed, because the refusal to reduce the fine on the ground of inability to pay did not contain a substantiated statement of reasons, since there was no specific analysis of the requirements which, in accordance with the European Union’s decision-making practice (in particular under paragraph 35 of the Guidelines for setting fines pursuant to Article 23(2)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 1/2003, 1 ‘the Guidelines’), and in accordance with the case-law of the European Union relating to inability to pay, must be verified for the purposes of granting a reduction of the fine in this context; nor were the arguments duly addressed, which had been adduced by COMPANHIA PREVIDENTE during the relevant proceeding before the European Commission, relating to the COMPANHIA PREVIDENTE group’s fulfilment of those requirements.
Second plea in law: error as to the facts, manifest error of assessment and breach of the principle of proportionality, in that the fine was not reduced in the light of the COMPANHIA PREVIDENTE group’s inability to pay.
The applicants claim that an error as to the facts, a manifest error of assessment and a breach of the principle of proportionality were committed because not all the relevant facts were given due consideration, nor was the evidence provided by COMPANHIA PREVIDENTE adequately examined during the procedure to revise the fine on the ground of inability to pay, pursuant to paragraph 35 of the Guidelines, and the fine, which is beyond the current financial resources of the COMPANHIA PREVIDENTE group, was maintained.
In addition, pursuant to Article 261 TFEU, the applicants request a reduction, on the ground of inability to pay, of the fine imposed on SOCITREL, for which COMPANHIA PREVIDENTE is jointly and severally liable.
____________1 OJ 2006, C 210, p. 2.