Judgment of the Court of First Instance (Second Chamber) 9 July 1992

In Case T-66/89,

THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (Second Chamber), composed of: J. L. Cruz Vilaça, President, D. P. M. Barrington, C. Yeraris, C. P. Briët and J. Biancarelli, Judges, Registrar: H.Jung,

having regard to the written procedure and further to the hearing on 8 October 1991,

gives the following

Judgment

The facts giving rise to the dispute

The subject-matter of the dispute

The content of the Net Book Agreements

Uncontested statistical information

The national court's appraisal of the validity of the NBA

Administrative procedure before the Commission

Procedure and forms of order sought by the parties

Substance

The plea that there is no infringement of Article 85(1) of the Treaty

The Decision

Arguments of the parties

Appraisal of the Court

Pleas concerning the application of Article 85(3) of the Treaty

(a) Plea alleging a discrepancy between the objections notified and those contained in the Decision

Arguments of the parties

Appraisal of the Court

(b) Plea alleging that the reasoning of the Decision concerning the assessment of the indispensability of the restrictions on competition arising from the NBA is incorrect

— The broad objections

(i) Disregard or misconstruction of the evidence produced

(ii) Distinction between the national and the intra-Community effects of the NBA

(iii) Parallels between the NBA and the Dutch books case

(iv) Absence of any proposed alternative

— The alleged misstatement of the PA's arguments

— The four arguments put forward by the PA to demonstrate the indispensability of the NBA

(i) Practical difficulties facing publishers

(ii) Practical difficulties facing booksellers

(iii) Booksellers' confidence regarding their competitors' conduct

(iv) The need for the standard conditions to be monitored and enforced by the PA

Costs

1 Language of the case: English.