Brussels, 19/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - The automobile manufacturer Volkswagen has appealed before the European Court of Justice against the decision by the Court of First Instance, which had ruled it should pay a record fine of EUR 90 million for infringement to the competition rules, essentially confirming the European Commission's decision. Volkswagen challenges the discrepancy between the facts and the severity of the sanction. We recall that the European court reproaches the manufacturer for having prevented, early in the nineties, re-imports of the "Audi" and "Volkswagen" models from Italy to Germany and Austria. At the time, it was advantageous for a German or an Austrian national to buy a car from a VW dealer in Italy because of the exchange rate.