The Court of Justice of the European Union has partially annulled the European Commission’s decisions ordering inspections in February 2017 at the premises of several French companies in the distribution sector, in a judgment delivered on Thursday 9 March (cases C-682/20 P, C-690/20 and C-693/20 P).
In France, several companies in the distribution sector such as Les Mousquetaires, Casino and Intermarché are challenging the EU General Court’s judgment of October 2020 (T-249/17, T-254/17, T-255/17) which partially upheld their appeals to annul the Commission’s decisions on the basis of which the EU institution, having been informed of possible anti-competitive practices between the complainants, had carried out inspections at their premises and made copies of the content of computer equipment.
In today’s judgments, the Court recalls that the Commission is obliged to record, even in oral form, all interviews it conducts for the purpose of collecting information relating to the subject matter of an investigation it is carrying out. This obligation applies irrespective of whether the interview in question took place before or after the formal opening of an investigation.
The Court therefore considers that the General Court erred in law in holding that the obligation to record did not apply to the interviews conducted with the suppliers of the undertakings in question on the grounds that no investigation had yet been formally opened. The General Court should also have examined whether the interviews in question were intended to collect information relating to the subject matter of an investigation, which should have led to the conclusion that the interviews should be recorded.
Consequently, the Court of Justice partially annuls the judgments of the General Court.
The Court concludes that since the information obtained in disregard of requirement to record constitutes the essential evidence on which the Commission’s decisions are based, the latter are not supported by sufficiently serious evidence. Therefore, the Court also annuls these decisions.
See the Court’s judgment (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/5pm (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)