OPINION OF MR GAND — CASE 41/69 ACF CHEMIEFARMA v COMMISSION

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

The application made by the Netherlands company ACF Chemiefarma in Case 41/69 and by the German companies Buchler and Boehringer Mannheim in Cases 44/69 and 45/69 respectively will lead the Court for the first time to give judgment on a decision whereby the Commission of the European Communities, after finding that undertakings had infringed the provisions of Article 85 of the Treaty of Rome, has imposed a fine on them.

This indicates the importance of the judgment which the Court is to deliver. This is so first of all from the legal point of view, because the Court has in particular to clarify the procedural requirements for decisions of this nature, to rule whether and after what period of time actions in respect of infringements in connexion with competition are time-barred, but in addition because, having regard to the unlimited jurisdiction conferred on the Court by Article 17 of Regulation No 17 of thé Council, the dispute as a whole is brought before the Court so that it has full power to consider the facts and, according to the view it takes as to the existence of the alleged infringements and their gravity, it may uphold, cancel or reduce the fine or, if necessary, increase it. I should add that this importance is in practice increased by the heavy fines imposed by the contested decision.

Since the reports of the hearing set out very clearly the facts forming the basis for the decision, I shall limit myself first of all to recalling briefly how the dispute arose. At the beginning of 1967 the Commission obtained possession of certain documents and information, of American origin, concerning the activity of the international quinine cartel established between the undertaking NV Nederlandse Combinatie voor Chemische Industrie — generally known as Nedchem and currently named Chemiefarma — the companies Boehringer Mannheim and Buchler, a group of three French undertakings and two British undertakings, Carnegies and Lake & Cruick-shank. In July and November 1967 the Commission, in accordance with the conditions laid down in Article 14 of Regulation No 17, carried out investigations on the six undertakings which had their registered offices in the Common Market; investigations were also carried out on Belgian and Italian quinine purchasers. As a result of these various operations the Commission initiated proceedings and on 30 July 1968 addressed a notice of complaints to the undertakings responsible. The latter submitted written observations and were heard on 11 and 12 February 1969. After the Advisory Committee on Restrictive Practices and Monopolies had delivered its opinion, on 16 July 1969 the Commission adopted the contested decision which was published in the Official Journal of 5 August 1969 (L 192, p. 5 et seq.).

The statement of reasons for this decision is subdivided into four sections. First of all, the Commission reviews the successive phases in concluding and implementing the various agreements entered into by the undertakings (I). It then states that those agreements had as their object and effect the restriction of trade within the Common Market by various methods which it lists (fixing the sales prices of quinine and quinidine, sharing out of the markets, fixing supply quotas and a compensation arrangement for the amounts supplied, restriction on the manufacture of quinidine) and that those agreements were capable of affecting trade between the Member States so that they fell within the scope of Article 85 (1) (II). On the other hand, since the companies had not notified the Commission before 1 November 1962, they could not benefit from the provisions of Article 85 (3) (III). Finally, the Commission statss that fines may be imposed on the undertakings for the infringements committed by them between 13 March 1962 and the beginning of February 1965, at which latter date the cartel seems to have terminated, and it sets out the reasons for the difference in the amount of the fines imposed on the undertakings concerned (IV).

On the basis of those reasons the Commission, in Article 1 of its decision, finds that the undertakings accused have until the beginning of February 1965 committed an infringement of the provisions of Article 85 (1) of the Treaty in concluding and implementing the export agreement of 8 and 14 July 1959, the additional agreements of 1960, the gentlemen's agreements of 9 April 1960 and the agreements implementing or supplementing those agreements. In Article 2 it imposes on them fines ranging from 210000 to 10000 units of account.

The three French undertakings who were the least important and on whom the smallest fines were imposed accepted this decision. Adopting a different course, Chemiefarma, Buchler and Boehringer brought an action before the Court for the annulment of the decision of 16 July 1969 in so far as relates to them and, as an application to the Court's unlimited jurisdiction, for the cancellation or reduction of the fine imposed on them.

The submissions are identical and the pleas invoked by the applicants and the arguments with which they support them are substantially similar on many points. Since an order of 9 April 1970 joined the three cases for the purposes of the oral procedure, I shall thus deliver a common opinion with regard to them, indicating as may be necessary with regard to eahc question the particular aspect under which it is put forward by one or other of the applicants.

I shall consider the various pleas which have been raised in the following order, which I have adopted partly from convenience and partly from logic:

I — The powers of the Commission

This submission has only been raised by Chemiefarma (Case 41/69). That undertaking maintains that the Commission did not have the necessary powers because the agreements were notified to the Bundeskartellamt and the Netherlands Minister for Economic Affairs neither of whom raised objections. The applicant requests you to consider whether Articles 88 and 89 of the Treaty and, if appropriate, Regulation No 17 in fact deny the Commission the power to take cognizance of agreements so notified.

The answer seems to me simple. In the first place, after the entry into force of Regulation No 17 on 13 March 1962, it is this provision which defines the rsepective powers of the Commission and of the national authorities in the implementation of Article 85 of the Treaty. Under the terms of Article 9 (3) of that regulation the authorities of the Member States remain competent only as long as the Commission has not initiated any procedure under Articles 2, 3 or 6 thereof. Such competence is consequently subsidiary to that of the Commission and the fact that it has not been employed in a given case cannot result in withdrawing the cartel from the power of the Community authorities. We also know that the gentlemen's agreements which constituted the keystone of the arrangement within the Common Market were not notified — and with good reason — either to the Netherlands authorities or to the Bundeskartellamt. This submission must therefore be rejected.

II — Submissions with regard to procedure and form

These factors will occupy me longer. In fact, as is natural owing to the novelty and importance of the matter on which there is as yet neither case-law nor even established administrative practice, many questions may be and indeed have been raised by the applicants. Although brevity may be sacrificed, the exact replies of the parties must be given not only for the solution to this case but in order to define the framework within which the Commission may operate.

The relevant provisions are Regulation No 17 of the Council of 6 February 1962 (OJ Special Edition 1959-1962, p. 87) and implementing Regulation No 99/63 of the Commission of 25 July 1963 (OJ Special Edition 1963-1964, p, 47) adopted in accordance with Article 24 of the former regulation. On most points, the submissions raised criticize the manner in which the provisions were applied in the present case; sometimes the applicants — especially Chemiefarma — also dispute the legality of various provisions in the regulations or plead the general principles of procedure which they endeavour to deduce wither from the legal systems of all the Member States or from one of them.

It is not always a simple matter to clasisfy these various submissions and in considering them I shall follow the course of the successive stagss of the procedure: notification of complaints and hearing the undertakings, the minutes of that hearing, the opinion of the Advisory Committee, the adoption of the decision by the Commission, and I shall end with the submissions relating to the statement of reasons for that decision.

A — The notice of complaints and the hearing of the undertakings

Article 19 of Regulation No 17 provides that before taking decisions, in particular as provided for in Articles 3 and 15 whereby the Commission may require the undertakings to terminate infringements and impose fines on them, the Commission shall give the undertakings concerned the opportunity of being heard on the matters to which it has taken objection. This is the principal point with regard to which the applicants invoke the infringement of the rights of the defence.

1. In the first place they criticize in fairly similar terms the lack of clarity or the incomplete nature of the notice of complaints. These notices are practically identical for all the undertakings concerned and contain about fifty pages; the undertakings complain that they indicate in detail neither the facts to which the Commission referred nor the evidence.

2. The rules of procedure for hearing the persons concerned were laid down by Regulation No 99/63 of the Commission, as it was empowered to do by Article 24 of Regulation No 17 of the Council. The applicant doubts whether such a delegation is proper since such activities are legislative and not executive ; in this respect it contradicts both Article 87 and the combined provisions of Articles 155 and 4 of the Treaty; in addition the European Parliament was not consulted on the question whether it was possible and desirable for the Council to delegate its powers in this sphere.

3. Another submission of illegality is raised by the same applicant, but this time against Article 9 (1) of Regulation No 99/63, under the terms of which Hearings shall be conducted by the persons appointed by thé Commission for that purpose. This provision violates the general principle of continuity in the composition of the administrative body before which proceedings are brought which may result in a penalty.

4. Chemiefarma again invokes the violation of a general principle of law according to which the administrative body in charge of proceedings is obliged to correct errors jointly with the undertakings concerned, to complete insufficient arguments and to allow the undertakings concerned to be heard on all the essential elements of the proceedings. In the present case, since it had not taken into account the observations submitted by the applicant in reply to the notice of complaints, the Commission did not remove from its decision a number of inaccuracies listed by Chemiefarma.

B — Minutes of the hearing of the parties

Under the terms of Article 9 (4) of Regulation No 99/63, The essential content of the statements made by each person heard shall be recorded in minutes which shall be read and approved by him. In fact, at the time of the hearings on 11 and 12 Feburary 1969 it was admitted that the minutes would be drawn up and sent immediately afterwards to the persons concerned for correction and approval. The minutes were only sent to the undertakings on 10 June with a request to submit their observations within a period of three weeks: Buchler complied with this time-limit, Boehringer obtained an extension until 7 July whilst there was no reaction from Nedchem.

Nevertheless, in Application 41/69 Nedchem complaints that the Commission failed to observe Article 9 (4) of the regulation by allowing too long a period to elapse between the hearing and dispatch of the minutes, by only allowing it an insufficient period of time in which to submit its observations and by failing to have it approve the contents of the minutes. No matter what difficulties were involved in drawing up the draft minutes, it is surprising that it required four months, but this delay does not involve anything which might adversely affect the rights of the undertakings concerned. In those circumstances the period of three weeks seems sufficient for making corrections. The plaintiff, which neither suggested alterations nor, like Boehringer, requested an extension of the period for that purpose, may not now complain that the period of time was insufficient nor can it complain that the Commission failed to obtain its agreement.

The same applicant observes in addition that the minutes were only communicated to it in German and French and not in its native language, Dutch; this constitutes an infringement of the principle of the equality of languages which emerges from Article 217 of the Treaty and Regulation No 1 of the Council.

The Commission concedes this point. It admits that through an oversight it committed an error which it would have rectified if the undertaking had brought it to its attention. In the Commission's opinion, however, that error did not prevent the applicant from obtaining sufficient information from the German version of the draft minutes and consequently its right of action has not been adversely affected. This view seems even better founded since the principle invoked by Chemiefarma does not constitute an absolute bar and by merely requesting that a Dutch version should be communicated to it, the applicant has by implication renounced its right to plead this. This submission must thus be rejected.

C — Procedure before the Advisory Committee

This body was established by Article 10 of Regulation No 17 in order to establish liaison with the authorities of the Member States; it must be consulted prior to the taking by the Commission of most of the decisions in the sphere of Article 86 et seq., and in particular before fines are imposed. The Committee is composed of officials competent in the matter of restrictive practices and monopolies, each State appointing an official to represent it who, if prevented from attending, may be replaced by another official. The consultation shall take place at a joint meeting convened by the Commission to be held not earlier than 14 days after dispatch of the notice convening it. The notice shall, in respect of each case to be examined, be accompanied by a summary of the case together with an indication of the most important documents, and a preliminary draft decision. A report of the outcome of the consultative proceedings shall be annexed to the draft decision but not made public.

Chemiefarma considers the Advisory Committee to be an obscure and hybrid institution and expresses doubt as to whether those provision sprovide adequate legal guarantees (for example, there is no guarantee of unity and continuity in its composition). Nevertheless, it seems that it does not expressly maintain that Article 10 is vitiated by illegality owing to this insufficiency.

On the other hand, the three applicants concur in maintaining that the opinion was delivered by a Committee which was in fact insufficiently informed:

The parties therefore requested that the Commission should be required to produce the complete file submitted to the Advisory Committee. The Court refused to require production of the file after the defendant's agent listed the documents which it contained but it then required the agent to inform it how the body before whom the proceedings was brought had learned of the amount of the fines contemplated. We shall need to consider the value of the evidence adduced.

The Commission considers that this submission may not be taken into consideration because the Advisory Committee is intended to ensure liaison with: the Member States and not to guarantee the rights of the undertakings. Consequently, the applicants are not entitled to contest the procedure employed before the Committee, since that relates exclusively to the Committee's competence.

The objection is not relevant, if only because it is not clear how this body could contest a decision taken against an undertaking on the ground that it had not been properly consulted itself. On the other hand, it cannot be excluded that, if a procedural requirement to consult a body is laid down by a provision prior to taking a decision, the omission or the improper completion of that formality may in certain cases constitute an infringement of an essential procedural requirement invalidating the decision.

In this case however the submission appears to be unfounded.

D — Conditions for the adoption of the Commission's decision

The Commission adopted the decision on 16 July 1969 after a report on the matter was communicated to it by the Commissioner in charge of competition matters, but without hearing the undertakings concerned.

Boehringer, and even more clearly Buchler, raise the question whether the fundamental rights guaranteed to a person liable to such serious penalties do not require that the hearing should take place in the presence of those persons who must decide a fine. If this is to be understood as putting forward a submission which amounts to disputing the legality of Article 9 (1) of Regulation No 99/63, it may be replied that no principle requires such a personal hearing.

Those same applicants in addition dispute the regularity of the decision on the ground that the Commission was insufficiently informed: its members did not have in their possession the final minutes — but I have said above that it is unnecessary to take this fact into account — and the entire file was not communicated to them.

The defendant is correct in emphasizing that division of labour is unavoidable in a collegiate body such as the Commission — a body which moreover is not in the nature of a court. For it to be in a position to take a valid decision, it is necessary and sufficient that each of its members was completely informed as to the essential factors of the matter — this was altered by the introductory note and speech by the Commissioner in charge of competition — and that the entire file should be available to it. This was so in the present case and it is therefore impossible to accept the complaint.

E — Submissions relating to the statement of reasons for the decision

1. Boehringer considered that lack of detail in the notice of complaints constituted an infringement of Article 19 (4) of Regulation No 17 and levels at the contested decision the same criticism which it now bases on Article 190 of the Treaty. I think that it must meet with the same reply. For this provision to be observed it is sufficient that the statement of reasons should indicate with sufficient clarity the facts constituting the infringements alleged; perusal of the decision which, moreover, follows the statement of objections very closely shows that this was indeed the case in the present proceedings; it is therefore impossible to accept the submission.

2. Chemiefarma also invokes against the Commission's decision the infringement of an essential procedural requirement and puts forward various submissions in this respect.

3. This applicant also maintains that the contested decision differs in certain points from the notice of complaints and it considers this an infringement of Article 4 of Regulation No 99/63. Although in accordance with that provision the Commission shall in its decisions deal only with those objections in respect of which undertakings have been afforded the opportunity of making known their views, it does not follow from this that such a decision must reproduce exactly the original notice. Certainly it may not deal with infringements other than those contained in the notice but the Commission may present them differently in order to take into account aspects which come to light in the discussion intitiated. In the present case comparison of the two documents shows that the decision does not differ essentially from the notice of complaints and that in any event, although the decision withdraws' certain complaints initially maintained, it contains no complaint which did not already feature in the feature in the notice. The submission must therefore be rejected.

4. Finally, to this submission of infringement of an essential procedural requirement must be added Chemiefarma's complaint that the contested decision violated a general principle of law that persons concerned should be made aware of their right to make an application and of the time-limits fixed for so doing; this was done neither in the decision itself nor in the accompanying letter.

III — Whether there is an infringement of Article 85 (1)

After those rather lengthy explanations I can now broach the main point of the discussion: do the agreements drawn up by the applicants and the cooperation between them to which they gave rise constitute infringements coming within the scope of Article 85 (1)?

In order to decide this it is necessary to indicate the sphere within which such cooperation took place within the Common Market, to give details of the agreements concluded and to consider their scope and nature.

I shall then consider whether, once the cartel was established, it was continued in its entirety until February 1965 as the Commission says, or whether on the contrary it disappeared or was modified, totally or partially, and, if necessary, on what date.

A —. The very complete account given in the report of the hearing of the various aspects presented by the cartel allows me merely to review its essential here. Nevertheless, it is necessary from the outset to emphasize the complexity of the network of agreements drawn up between the members of this cartel and the great strength of the links thereby created between them.

1. In the beginning an export agreement for quinine and quinidine was drawn up in July 1959 between Boehringer and Nedchem expressly excluding the countries of the Common Market from its scope. Buchler became a party to this agreement in March 1960; then on 7 April 1960 the three applicants on the one part and the French undertakings and the two British undertakings on the other part concluded an agreement governing the conditions for the adherence, with regard to quinine, of the French and British undertakings to the foregoing agreement. That agreement, which was described as an export agreement, was made public. But on the same day a meeting of the members of the cartel approved the provisions of two gentlemen's agreements concluded between the applicants and the French group on the one hand and Carnegies and Lake & Cruickshank on the other. They extend the provisions of the export agreement to all export sales, that is, to those in the countries of the Common Market. The terms are identical and I shall henceforth speak of the gentlemen's agreements. They were reduced to writing, dated 9 April 1960, but were unsigned and above all remained secret. Subsequently, in order to implement these agreements the undertakings concluded others either at their joint meetings or through an exchange of letters, for example in order jointly to fix the date and amount of the increases in price. It must finally be added that in the sphere of purchases as well as sales the undertakings concluded agreements relating to buying quinquina bark (the bark pool) and purchasing quantities of quinine from American strategic resreves (the stockpile agreement).

2. The Commission raises four points with regard to which the cartel formed by the undertakings is contrary to the provisions of Article 85 (1); they all originate directly or indirectly from the export agreement and the gentlemen's agreements.

3. In the first place must the gentlemen's agreement be considered as an agreement, as it is by the contested decision, or as a concerted practice? Although both are referred to in Article 85 of the Treaty the distinction is not without significance, at least with regard to proving the infringement. In fact according to the Grundig judgment (Joined Cases 56 and 58/64, [1966] E.C.R. 299) for the purposes of the application of Article 85 there is no need to take account of the concrete effects of an agreement when it has as its object the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition. It is no doubt otherwise in the case of a concerted practice which, according to the prevailing view, presupposes that the agreement is actually carried out so that it is necessary to establish the actual conduct of the undertakings concerned and the existence of a link between such conduct and a prearranged plan.

4. The second question is equally awkward: it is whether the connexions existing between the export agreement and the gentlemen's agreement cause the former to fall under Article 85 (1). The applicants dispute this: Boehringer in particular complains that the Commission did not give separate consideration to different acts and situations although, according to the Grundig judgment, the infringement may only be found in the elements of the agreement covered by the prohibition. This is all the more true if two distinct agreements, with different content and scope, are concerned. Even if there was anything reprehensible in the gentlemen's agreement in that it extended provisions of the export agreement to the Common Market, the export agreement as such would in any event escape Article 85 (1). In any case, the undertakings considered it lawful which means that they did not intentionally infringe the prohibition.

B —. This is the aspect originally presented by the cooperation between the undertakings within the international quinine cartel. Nevertheless, although the applicants concede that the gentlemen's agreement was contrary to the provisions of Article 85 (1) and although they scarcely dispute that its application was continuing on 13 March 1962, the date taken into consideration in fixing the fines, they maintain on the other hand that it was expressly and finally terminated at the meeting on 29 October 1962, that after an almost total interruption the export agreement itself was put in abeyance at the meeting on 14 October 1963 and was only applied sporadically in 1964, and that although the declarations of October and November 1963 again guaranteed protection of domestic markets they constituted at the most a concerted practice which did not involve appreciable restriction of competition as the shortage of raw materials at that time excluded any additional supplies. On the other hand, the Commission disputes that the gentlemen's agreement was terminated and maintains that at the most it became dormant like the export agreement and if it were necessary to concede that because of this only a concerted practice is involved the undertakings none the less intended that their respective conduct should continue to conform to the agreements. In sum, the contested decision considers that on the four points which I have described the cartel's policy remained unchanged until the beginning of February 1965.

1. We must thus consider if and how the cartel developed. The entire dispute, initiated in the written procedure and continued at the bar, rests on conflicting interpretations of the minutes of the cartel's meetings and the correspondence between its members in 1962 and 1963. Before I outline this dispute, I should like to recall the context within which those events took place.

2. In those circumstances, it seems to me that the only reasonable interpretation of the statement appearing at the end of the minutes of the meeting on 29 October 1962 is that it implies the end of the gentlemen's agreement. After that date there is no longer any formal agreement on a cartel within the Common Market. If nevertheless cooperation continued as the Commission maintains, it did so in the form of a concerted practice. The task of the Court is therefore to consider what the applicants' conduct was until the beginning of February 1965 in the four spheres referred to by the agreements and considered by the decision. According to the decision, cooperation continued up to the said date with regard to the four following points: fixing the sales prices of quinine and quinidine, sharing out of domestic markets for the benefit of the members who were producers in such countries, fixing supply quotas and the existence of an arrangement for compensating deliveries and finally the restrictions on the manufacture of quinidine. Those are the four points which must be successively considered.

3. The first infringement of the provision of Article 85 alleged against the undertakings in the decision — and this is the one which raises the most difficult questions — is that of maintaining until the beginning of 1965 a joint policy for export prices to certain countries of the Common Market where none of the undertakings had its place of business, namely Belgium, Luxembourg and Italy.

4. The contested decision secondly complains that the undertakings resreved domestic markets for the manufacturers of those countries. Such protection was achieved by the gentlemen's agreement but it was renewed in the exchange of letters between the members of the cartel in October and November 1963. If this correspondence is not to be considered as an agreement the object of which was to wall off the domestic markets, in any event it constitutes the basis of a concerted practice. But a reply must then be given to the following objection put forward in particular by Boehringer: according to it those declarations were mere courtesy gestures without any actual content since the extreme scarcity of supplies of raw materials made impossible any increase in exports to which there were additional psychological and legal barriers. The Commission replies to this that the position on the market in raw materials did not alter in essentials during the period taken into consideration in imposing the fines since the sagging of price levels for exports of bark coincided with the purchase from the American stockpile; likewise the purchase price of bark remained largely stable until 1965. It is true that on the basis of internal memoranda from its quinine department the applicant maintained that there was a serious shortage of raw materials and that it was obliged to ration by quotas supplies of quinine and quinidine; the Commission confronts it with other notes from the same department which are appreciably more optimistic. It may be conceded that supplies constituted a permanent source of concern since they were irregular but there was no shortage. Furthermore the alleged legislative and psychological barriers do not explain either why the volume of trade should remain so small after 1962 or why with regard to supplies foreign producers should conform to internal prices. It must therefore be admitted that the provision protecting domestic markets continued to be applied during the period considered by the Commission.

5. The third complaint in the decision relates to the system of quotas and to its corollary, the compensation arrangements.

6. Finally I shall merely mention for the record the final head of the infringement alleged against the members of the cartel — the prohibition of the British members from producing quinidine and of the French from producing synthetic quinidine. In the case of the French undertakings at least this constituted the consideration for the recognition of the protected market in quinine and it must be admitted that it lasted as long as that protection. It did not merely represent a theoretical interest since after the breach of the last links of the cartel one of the French undertakings began to produce synthetic quinidine.

7. Consequently it seems to me to have been proved that, apart from the system of quotas and of compensation, the applicants continued after the termination of the genthemen's agreement to apply the restrictive practices which were established in 1960 within the Common Market. There are, moreover, no grounds for surprise that the applicants were always connected by several agreements. Thus the members had held preliminary meetings of the cartel in order to fix the prices which they applied by agreement to exports to Belgium and Italy. That those practices were capable of affecting trade between Member States seems scarcely in dispute despite Chemiefarma's statement; the fixing of prices and protection of domestic markets constituted obstacles to trade preventing consumers from benefiting from the conduct which the undertakings would have adopted had they not been connected as they were.

IV — The fine

The contested decision is based on Article 15 (2) of Regulation No 17 under the terms of which the Commission may impose fines on undertakings where either intentionally or negligently they infringe Article 85 of the Treaty. That article also statss that in fixing the amount of the fine, regard shall be had both to the gravity and to the duration of the infringement and that such decisions shall not be of a criminal law nature.

A —. A difficult question is immediately encountered; that of the limitation period with regard to infringements of the rules on competition. Article 15 is silent on this point but the applicants maintain that the principle existing in more or less similar legislation of the Member States must also be applied in Community law, and assessment of the situation on the basis of those various provisions led them to conceive that the infringements alleged were time-barred. On the other hand, the contested decision considers that even if the principle is admitted, between the termination of the infringement (February 1965) and the investigations undertaken by the Commission in 1967 on the members of the cartel under Article 14 of Regulation No 17, the period of time is not capable of barring the initiation of proceedings against the undertakings concerned.

B —. For the purposes of the fine the infringement is assumed to have been committed either intentionally or negligently. I shall not dwell long on this point.

I am therefore of the opinion that in Cases 41, 44 and 45/69:

the fines imposed on the companies Nederlandse Combinatie voor Chemische Industrie, Boehringer Mannheim and Buchler should be reduced by 20 % of the amount fixed by the decision of the Commission of 16 July 1969,

the remaining submissions in the applications should be rejected, four fifths of the costs in each case should be borne by the applicant and the remainder by the Commission.

1 Translated from the French.

2 Kurt Markert: Die Anwendung des Gesetzes gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen auf internationale Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen, in Zehn Jahre Bundeskartellamt, p. 205 et seq.

3 Gleiss and Kleinmann: Keine Verjährung von Ordnungswidrigkeiten im Europäischen Kartellrecht, Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 1967, p. 2097.