Brussels, 08/07/2010 (Agence Europe) - In a ruling made on Wednesday 7 July (Case T-111/07), the European Court of Justice found in favour of the Czech company Agrofert Holding a.s. against the European Commission. It overruled the European Commission's decision of 13 February 2007, refusing Agrofert access to documents regarding the merger between Polski Koncern Naftowy Orlen SA (PKN) and Unipetrol, which had been exchanged between itself and these companies, as well as internal documents and legal opinions established in this case. Agrofert was a minority shareholder in Unipetrol and considered that it had been damaged by the acquisition of the latter by PKN, authorised in April 2005 by the Commission (EUROPE 8933).
For refusing to communicate the documents in question, the Commission, supported by PKN Orlen, affirmed that releasing the requested documents containing sensitive information would have damaged the climate of trust and mutual cooperation established by the parties concerned. According to the Commission, this would have damaged the way in which merger procedures worked and their efficiency, and would have also compromised the objectives of its investigation, protected by the derogation in Article 4 § 2 third indent in Regulation 1049/2001 on access to institutions' documents.
The ECJ rejected these arguments and indicated that the Commission decision was limited to a general indication of the fact that the documents in question contained sensitive information. According to the ECJ, these considerations are “very vague and generalised” and cannot be accepted as a valid argument for all the documents in question. The Commission has therefore not sufficiently demonstrated that releasing all of these documents would in any direct and effective way damage the objectives of the investigation. Consequently, the decision of 13 February 2007 must be overruled. (F.G./transl.fl)