Judgment_paragraph 85 · Kish Glass & Co. Ltd v Commission of the European Communities (T-65/96)

85It must first be determined whether the argument set out by the Commission in the contested decision for the purpose of defining the geographical market is contradictory. In the course of the hearing it became apparent that at several points in the contested decision the Commission was making reference to its decision in Pilkington-Techint/SIV, point 16 of which appears to be inconsistent with point 33 of the contested decision. In that connection, it should be borne in mind that a contradiction in the statement of the reasons on which a decision is based constitutes a breach of the obligation laid down in Article 190 of the Treaty such as to affect the validity of the measure in question if it is established that, as a result of that contradiction, the addressee of the measure is not in a position to ascertain, wholly or in part, the real reasons for the decision and, as a result, the operative part of the decision is, wholly or in part, devoid of any legal justification (see in particular the judgment of the Court of Justice in Case T-5/93 Tremblay and Others v Commission [1995] ECR II-185, paragraph 42).