Brussels, 19/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 19 November, the European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, criticised the European Commission for its delay in providing the German company Infineon, which was under investigation in the smart card chips cartel inquiry, access to evidence.
Infineon was fined €82 million in September for its involvement in this cartel. Infineon argues that the Commission violated its rights by not providing it with the electronic version of an internal email of a competitor which implicated it. Infineon wanted to get hold of this evidence as it doubted the authenticity of the email. The Commission sent a copy of the email on 28 July of this year, just over a month before it took its decision, even though it had had it in its possession since January of the same year. Infineon states that this delay left it just a week to carry out the necessary analysis to determine whether the email was authentic. Nor did the Commission provide the Ombudsman with any convincing explanation to justify the delay. (EL)