Judgment_paragraph 468 · JFE Engineering Corp., formerly NKK Corp., Nippon Steel Corp., JFE Steel Corp. and Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd v Commission of the European Communities (T-67/00, T-68/00, T-71/00, T-78/00)

468Article 9(1) of Protocol 23 provides that information acquired pursuant to the protocol may only be used for the purposes of the procedures provided for in Articles 53 and 54 of the EEA Agreement, in much the same way as, under Article 20 of Regulation No 17, information may only be used for the purpose for which it was obtained. As regards this latter provision, it is settled case-law that the right to professional secrecy and the rights of defence of a company are violated when the Commission, or a national authority as the case may be, relies on evidence against that company which was obtained during an investigation carried out for a different purpose (Case 85/87 Dow Benelux v Commission [1989] ECR 3137, paragraph 18, Case C-67/91 Asociación Española de Banca Privada and Others (‘Spanish Banks’) [1992] ECR I-4785, paragraph 35et seq., Case C-60/92 Otto [1993] ECR I-5683, paragraph 20, and PVC II, paragraph 472).