Brussels, 10/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - On 10 February, the Court of Justice rejected the appeal from German company Activision Blizzard (formerly CD-Contact Data GmbH) and upheld the €500,000 fine imposed on it for its participation in anti-competitive agreements in the market for Nintendo games consoles and games cartridges in 1997. The Court also upheld the decision of the General Court halving the original fine of €1 million imposed on CD-Contact Data on 30 October 2002 by decision of the European Commission (see EUROPE 8330).
On that date, the Commission imposed total fines of €167.843 million on Japanese company Nintendo and European subsidiaries, and on seven of its exclusive distributors including CD-Contact Data GmbH (Belgium/Luxembourg). The anti-competitive agreement which occasioned these fines covered the period from 1991 to 1997 and was designed to restrict parallel trade, that is to say, exports from one country to another by parallel distribution channels, of Nintendo games consoles and cartridges within the European Economic Area. By judgment of 30 April 2009, the Court of First Instance (now the General Court) varied the Commission's decision “inasmuch as that decision had not granted Activision Blizzard the benefit of the attenuating circumstance of its exclusively passive role in the infringement” and reduced the fine to €500,000, but dismissed the application for annulment of the Commission's decision.
The Court, hearing an appeal against this judgment, confirmed the fine, ruling that the Court of First Instance had, in rejecting the request for the Commission's decision to be annulled, not erred in law. It said that the Court of First Instance neither distorted the evidence nor made a manifest error of assessment in finding that the documents relied on by the Commission constituted sufficient evidence of the existence of an illegal agreement between Activision Blizzard and Nintendo. The Court held, furthermore, that sufficient reasons were stated for the judgment under appeal to enable Activision Blizzard “to know the reasons which led the Court of First Instance to conclude that it had participated in an agreement with the object of restricting parallel trade” and to enable the Court of Justice “to review that judgment”.
Consequently, the Court dismissed the appeal. (F.G./transl.rt)