Brussels, 09/06/2010 (Agence Europe) - In a ruling delivered on Wednesday 9 June, the General Court of the EU annulled the decision by the Commission in April 2005 to partially reject the request by Editions Odile Jacob for full or partial access to internal documents relating to the procedure on the acquisition of Vivendi Universal Publishing by the Lagardère group. The Court decided that the Commission had misunderstood how to apply a number of exceptions to access to documents provided for in Regulation 1049/2001 on public access to institution documentation.
Editions Odile Jacob intended to use these documents to support two pending appeals currently before the Court: the first, seeking to have annulled the Commission decision to authorise, subject to conditions, the above mentioned operation (case T-279/04), and the second, seeking to have annulled the Commission decision of 30 July 2004 on approval of Wendel Investissement as the acquirer of the assets sold by Lagardère, in accordance with the Commission Decision of 7 January 2004 (case T-452/04). The Commission provided Editions Odile Jacob with only one document, and refused access to the others, arguing that these refusals were exceptions defined by Regulation 1049/2001. The documents in question were mainly internal memorandums on the merger, the full correspondence between the Commission and Lagardère and other documents relating to the two cases. The refusal was upheld by the Commission on 7 April 2005, leading Editions Odile Jacob to appeal on the grounds that the Commission had ignored its right of access - even partial - to the documents relating to the merger and that, in failing to provide these documents, had failed to apply correctly the exceptions set out in Regulation 1049/2001.
The Court accepted these arguments only in part, noting that the Commission had failed sufficiently to demonstrate that release of these documents would definitely and adversely affect protection of inspection, investigation and audit activities. While acknowledging the importance, for the institution, of preparing its internal decisions calmly and being able to express itself free from all pressure, the Court felt that the justification advanced by the Commission with regard to the content of the documents was not borne out by detailed argument. The exception drawn from protection of the Commission's decision-making process could not, therefore, be justified. With regard to the exception relating to protection of the commercial interests of the operators concerned, the Court noted an error by the Commission: the Commission invoked this exception without showing in the reasons for its decision that it had specifically and individually examined each of the documents to which the applicant was seeking access. The Court, therefore, overturned the Commission decision to refuse full or partial access to all of the documents requested. (F.G./transl.rt)