Brussels, 23/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - In competition investigations, the European Commission is entitled to ask companies to provide information from a period before EU rules were applicable if this information is necessary to enable it to assess whether there was any infringement of the rules once they became applicable.
That was what the General Court of the EU decided on Thursday 22 March in a ruling on two cases (T-458/09 and T-171/10) involving Slovakian telecommunications company Slovak Telekom, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom. In January 2009, after an inspection at the premises of Slovak Telekom, the Commission informed the company that it had decided to initiate proceedings against it to determine whether it had abused its dominant position in the Slovak telecommunications sector. By two decisions, the Commission ordered Slovak Telekom to provide it with information on its activities, not only during the period following the accession of Slovakia to the European Union, but also during the period prior to accession. The Commission stated, however, that it had no intention of establishing an infringement of EU competition rules for the period before 1 May 2004, but wanted to obtain relevant information to enable it to assess if Slovak Telecom observed the rules after that date. Slovak Telekom brought two actions before the General Court seeking the annulment of the Commission's decisions, arguing that the Commission had no powers to request information relating to the period before 1 May 2004.
In its ruling, the Court argued that, under the terms of EU competition law, the Commission may require companies to provide it with such information as is necessary to detect any abuse of a dominant position, including information which may legitimately be regarded as having a connection with the putative infringement. Moreover, given its broad powers of investigation and assessment, it is for the Commission to decide whether the information which it requests from companies is necessary. The Court also rejected Slovak Telekom's argument that there is no nexus between the infringement allegedly committed by that company and the requested information. The Court states that that information, irrespective of the fact that it predates the alleged period of infringement, may enable the Commission to define the markets at issue, to determine whether the company concerned holds a dominant position on those markets. Dismissing the company's action, the Court found that the Commission was able to request Slovak Telekom to provide it with the information contained in the contested decisions. (FG/transl.rt)