In conclusions returned on Thursday 12 April (case C-99/17), Advocate General Melchior Whatelet considers that the General Court of the European Union (EGC) did not respond “to the required legal level” to the arguments of Infineon Technologies, which contested a fine handed down to it by the European Commission in 2014.
On 3 September 2014, three companies - Infineon of Germany, Philips of the Netherlands and Samsung of South Korea - were fined by the Commission for a cartel on the chip cards market in the European Economic Area between 2003 and 2005 (see EUROPE 11147).
These chips are used in SIM cards for mobile telephones, bank cards, ID cards and passports. The fines in question stood at a total of €138 million, including €82 million for Infineon.
The European Ombudsman, Emily O'Reilly, detected irregularities in the procedure followed by the Commission (see EUROPE 11200).
Infineon and Samsung appealed against the existence of the cartel and the level of the fines. Having been found against by the EGC on 15 December 2016 (see EUROPE 11690), they filed an appeal with the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU).
Advocate General Whatelet's conclusions dealt only with the appeal brought by Infineon, which will be the first group to be judged.
For its 2016 judgment, the General Court looked at only five contacts between Infineon and the other companies out of the 11 in question. Although the Advocate General acknowledged that the agreement was sufficiently characterised by these elements, he takes the view that the judges should have carried out an exhaustive check of the bilateral contacts contested by Infineon in order to assess the proportionality of the fine against the seriousness of the infringement.
He therefore takes the view that the EGC failed to take all essential factors into consideration and recommends that the judgment is cancelled by the CJEU and referred back to the EGC. (Original version in French by Mathieu Solal, intern)