Orkem SA v Commission
The Commission may compel an undertaking to provide factual information in an investigation, but cannot compel it to provide answers which might involve an admission of an infringement.
Facts
The European Commission sent Orkem, a French chemical company, a request for information under its powers of investigation, in connection with a suspected cartel in the thermoplastics industry. The request included questions about the purpose of meetings between producers and the measures taken to implement price initiatives. Orkem argued that it should not be required to answer questions which would require it to incriminate itself.
Legal principle
The Court of Justice held that the Commission was entitled to compel an undertaking to provide all necessary information concerning such facts as may be known to it and to disclose to it, if necessary, such documents relating thereto as are in its possession, even if the latter may be used to establish against it the existence of anticompetitive conduct. However, the Commission may not compel an undertaking to provide it with answers which might involve an admission on its part of the existence of an infringement which it is incumbent upon the Commission to prove. Some of the questions put to Orkem, which concerned the purpose of the meetings, went too far, and the decision was annulled to that extent.
Related cases on investigations, cartels and penalties
- A Menarini Diagnostics SRL v Italy (2011) Application no 43509/08
- Akzo Nobel Chemicals Ltd v Commission Case C-550/07 P, [2010] ECR I-8301
- AM & S Europe Ltd v Commission Case 155/79, [1982] ECR 1575
- Hoechst AG v Commission Joined Cases 46/87 and 227/88, [1989] ECR 2859
- Norris v Government of the United States of America [2008] UKHL 16, [2008] 1 AC 920
- Pfleiderer AG v Bundeskartellamt Case C-360/09, [2011] ECR I-5161
- Vantaan kaupunki v Skanska Industrial Solutions Oy Case C-724/17, EU:C:2019:204
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