Opinion of Mr Advocate General Mischo delivered on 7 May 1986

1 Translated from the French.

2 Commission Decision No 3716/83/ECSC of 23 December 1983 establishing a guarantee system for certain steel products and a system for the verification of the minimum prices (Official Journal 1983, L 373, p. 5).

3 Decision No 30/53 of 2 May 1953 on practices prohibited by Article 60(1) of the Treaty in the common market for coal and steel (Official Journal, English Special Edition 1952-58, p. 9). For a codified version dated 20 January 1964, see Official Journal 1963, p. 2980.

4 Commission Decision No 1834/81/ECSC of 3 July 1981 (Official Journal 1981, L 184, p. 7).

5 Statement of Reply, p. 3.

6 Decision No 24/54 of 6 May 1954 laying down, in implementation of Article 66 (1) of the Treaty, a regulation on what constitutes control of an undertaking (Official Journal, English Special Edition 1952*58, p. 16).

7 Emphasis added.

8 Application, p. 11.

9 Statement of defence, p. 7.

10 Judgment of 11 October 1984 in Case 103/83 Ulinor v Commission [1984] ECR 3483

11 The Commission cannot apply the definition of a group of undertakings, laid down by the Treaty in tbe context of the rules governing mergers and concentrations, to situations other than those referred to in Article 66 and thereby ignore the provisions of the Treaty and the case-law of the Court. ([1984] ECR, at p. 3486).

12 Commission Decision No 1836/81/ECSC of 3 July 1981 on the obligations of distributive undertakings to publish pricelists and conditions of sale and on practices prohibited for these undertakings (Official Journal 1981, L 184, p. 13).

13 Decision No 19/63 of 11 December 1963 amending Decision No 30/53 of 2 May 1953 (Official Journal, English Special Edition 1963-64, p. 65).

14 Whereas producer undertakings are also subject to this requirement where they do not sell their products themselves but employ selling agencies to do so; whereas, if it were not so, such separation between production and distribution operations would in so far as it exists have the effect of nullifying the prohibition on discrimination by producer undertakings.

15 Case 20/59 Italy v High Authority [I960] ECR 325. at p. 336; Case 8/55 Fédération charbonnière de Belgique v High Authority [1954-56] ECR 292, ai p. 299, Casc 25/59 Netherlands v High Authority [1960] ECR 355, al p. 372.

16 Commission Recommendation No 1835/81/ECSC of 3 July 1981 to the Member States on the obligation to publish pricelists and conditions of sale and on prohibited practices in the steel trade (Official Journal 1981, L 184, p. 9).

17 Judgment of 28 March 1984 in Case 8/83 Bertoli v Commission [1984] ECR 1649, paragraph 12 at p. 1660.

18 In Bertoli, cited above, the Court once again stated that the extent of the obligation to state reasons depends on the nature of the measure in question and on the context in which it was adopted (paragraph 13 of the Decision). In its judgment of 11 December 1980 in Case 1252/79 Lucchini v Commission [1980] ECR 3753, the Court held more particularly: The statements of the reasons on which a decision imposing a fine for infringement of the ECSC rules on minimum prices is based, although succinct, must be considered to be sufficient where the undertaking to which it is addressed has participated in the procedure whereby the decision in question was -drawn up and has been informed of the method of calculating the disputed underpricing (paragraph 3 of the summary; see also paragraph 14 of the Decision).