205Moreover, if the Court were to have to consider that plea and, as the case may be, declare it to be well-founded, that might result in an infringement of the rights of the defence in the proceedings before the Court. Since, in the present expedited procedure under Article 76a of the Rules of Procedure, that plea was not — in accordance with paragraph 2 of that article — the subject of a statement in intervention within the meaning of Article 116(4) of the Rules of Procedure and was necessarily and unavoidably submitted for the first time at the hearing before the Court, it is capable of prejudicing the Commission's right, pursuant to the adversarial principle, to state its views properly in that regard (see, to that effect, Case C-480/99 PPlant and Others v Commission and South Wales Small Mines [2002] ECR I-277, paragraphs 24 and 33, and Case C-259/96 PCouncil v De Nil and Impens [1998] ECR I-2915, paragraph 31).