A group of leading cement makers has won a battle with the European Commission over excessive data requested by the Commission for a cartel investigation. As part of the near-five-year-probe closed in mid-2015 due to insufficient evidence, the Commission had visited the companies and later asked them to complete a questionnaire, while suspecting them of possibly restricting imports into the EU, and divvying up markets and coordinating prices. In 2014, companies including Lafarge, Holcim, Cemex, Heide
A group of leading cement makers has won a battle with the European Commission over excessive data requested by the Commission for a cartel investigation.
As part of the near-five-year-probe closed in mid-2015 due to insufficient evidence, the Commission had visited the companies and later asked them to complete a questionnaire, while suspecting them of possibly restricting imports into the EU, and divvying up markets and coordinating prices.
In 2014, companies including Lafarge, Holcim, Cemex, HeidelbergCement, Buzzi Unicem and Italmobiliare asked the EU General Court for this demand to be annulled, saying that the Commission was asking for too much information and in a ‘burdensome format’. The General Court refused and upheld the Commission’s position.
But yesterday The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Europe’s highest court, set aside both the Commission’s decision and the General Court’s judgement. The General Court was wrong to find the Commission’s decisions ‘adequately reasoned’, it said.
Questions sent to the companies were ruled to be “extremely numerous and cover very different types of information”, and it was not possible to tell whether the information was needed for the investigation, the CJEU said.
When requesting information the Commission should set out the legal basis and purpose of the request, specify what information is required and fix a time-limit for it to be provided.
The CJEU said this is important in order to show that the request for information is justified but also to enable companies to judge the scope of their duty to cooperate and their rights of defence.
