201The applicant accuses the Commission of infringing Article 7 of the ECHR by applying significant increases to the fines which were not available when the infringement was committed. According to Article 7(1),‘a heavier penalty [shall not] be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed.’ The principle laid down in Article 7 falls within the protection of fundamental rights of the Community which the European Union expressly observes and which the Community institutions must also observe in competition cases (Case T-112/98 Mannesmannröhren-Werke v Commission [2001] ECR II-729, paragraphs 60 and 77). In the present case, the Commission considerably raised the level of fines when adopting the Guidelines in 1998. Then, in autumn 2001, without any legal basis and without any amendment of the Guidelines, the Commission raised the level of fines to an extent never before seen. In the contested decision, the Commission applied those two increases of the level of fines even though most of the conduct involved had already taken place before the adoption of the Guidelines in 1998. Those increases represent changes to the framework of the penalty and it is contrary to Article 7 of the ECHR to apply them to the infringement in this case.
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