The Court of Justice of the European Union upholds the General Court's decision annulling the European Commission's decision finding an abuse of dominance by Intel and imposing a fine of €1.06 billion.
In May 2009, the Commission imposed a fine of €1.06 billion on Intel, a microprocessor manufacturer based in the United States. The Commission complained that Intel had abused its dominant position in the market for x86 microprocessors by, inter alia, offering loyalty discounts to its customers and to a distributor of desktop computers. In 2014, the General Court dismissed Intel's action against this Commission decision in its entirety. On appeal by Intel, the Court of Justice set aside that judgment and referred the case back to the General Court for further proceedings.
On remand, the General Court partially annulled the Commission's decision and annulled the fine of €1.06 billion in its entirety. The Commission appealed against the General Court's 2022 judgment.
The Court dismisses the Commission's appeal and upholds the General Court's judgment.
In support of its appeal, the Commission submitted that the General Court's review of the Commission's assessment of the effective competitor test was vitiated by procedural errors, errors of law and distortions of evidence.
In its judgment, the Court dismissed all the grounds of appeal raised by the Commission. As regards the 'effective competitor' test, the Court confirmed that it is for the General Court to examine any argument which seeks to challenge the Commission's assessment and which is capable of calling into question the conclusions reached by the Commission at the end of that test. Such arguments may relate both to the compatibility of the Commission's assessment with the principles governing the 'effective competitor' test and to the probative value of the facts on which the Commission based its assessment. Moreover, the Court has confirmed that it is not for the General Court to ascertain whether the Commission's operative part of the decision could have been justified on the basis of a statement of reasons which did not contain the errors found by the Commission, unless that statement of reasons is set out coherently in the decision.
An appeal against a judgment or order of the General Court may be brought before the Court of Justice on points of law only. An appeal shall not, in principle, have suspensive effect. If the appeal is admissible and well founded, the Court of Justice shall set aside the judgment of the General Court. If the state of the proceedings so permits, the Court of Justice may itself give a final judgment in the case. Otherwise, it shall refer the case back to the General Court, which shall be bound by the decision given by the Court of Justice on the appeal.
SDEU/ gnews - RoZ
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