Action brought on 5 December 2012 - AXA Versicherung v Commission
(Case T-526/12)
Language of the case: German
Parties
Applicant: AXA Versicherung AG (Cologne, Germany) (represented by: C. Bahr, S. Dethof and A. Malec, lawyers)
Defendant: European Commission
Form of order sought
The applicant claims that the Court should:
annul the contested refusal;
in the alternative, annul the contested refusal in part;
order the defendant to pay the costs of the proceedings.
Pleas in law and main arguments
The applicant challenges the Commission's negative decisions by silence refusing the applicant access - for a second time - to the Commission's file in Case COMP/39125 - Carglass.
In support of the action, the applicant relies on four pleas in law.
1. First plea in law: infringement of the duty to carry out a concrete and individual examination of the requested documents under Article 2 and 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.
- The applicant submits, in this regard, that the Commission failed to comply with its duty under Articles 2 and 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 to carry out a concrete and individual examination of the requested documents. Instead, it wrongfully categorised the documents concerned on the basis of formal criteria.
2. Second plea in law: infringement of the first and third indents of Article 4(2) and of the second subparagraph of Article 4(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 by refusing access to specific documents in the file.
The applicant submits that the Commission unlawfully gave too broad an interpretation to the scope of the exceptions laid down in Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001. The applicant takes the view that: (i) commercial interests would not be undermined for the purposes of the first indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/200 and, (ii) the Commission is not entitled to rely on the protection of investigations under the third indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.
In addition, the decision-making process would not be seriously undermined (subparagraph 2 of Article 4(3) of Regulation No 1049/2001).
Moreover, the Commission wrongly denies that there is an overriding public interest in disclosing the documents requested.
3. Third plea in law: infringement of Article 4(6) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 by refusing full access to specific documents
In this regard, the applicant submits that the Commission infringed Article 4(6) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 by failing to grant access in part to the relevant documents. The Commission failed to examine whether access should be granted to some of the documents, thereby infringing the requirements of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.
4. Fourth plea in law: infringement of the first and third indents of Article 4(2), the second subparagraph of Article 4(3) and Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 by refusing access to the complete version of the contents page of the Commission's file.
- In this context, the applicant claims that the Commission gave too broad an interpretation to the exceptions under Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 also in relation to the application for access to the unredacted version of the contents page. The applicant takes the view that, also in this regard, commercial interests - the first indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 - and the protection of investigations - the third indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 -could not be undermined.
- In addition, it submits that the privacy of the individual under Article 4(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 would not be undermined.
____________1 - Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (OJ 2001 L 145, p. 43).