102In paragraph 200 of the judgment under appeal, the Court of First Instance rejected the applicants' argument in the following terms:‘… it is clear from case-law that the limit established by Article 15(2) of Regulation No 17 relating to the overall turnover of an undertaking is precisely intended to prevent fines from being disproportionate in relation to the size of the undertaking (Musique Diffusion Française v Commission, cited above, paragraph 119). Provided that the final amount of the fine does not exceed 10 % of ADM's total turnover in the last year of the infringement, it cannot, therefore, be regarded as disproportionate simply because it is higher than the turnover which ADM achieved in the relevant market. It should be observed that the applicants have referred to the judgment … KNP BTv Commission …, in paragraph 61 of which the Court stated, obiter dictum, as follows: “Article 15(2) of Regulation No 17 … aims to ensure that the penalty is proportionate to the undertaking's size on the product market in respect of which the infringement was committed”. In addition to the fact that, in the same paragraph, the Court went on to refer expressly to paragraph 119 of the judgment in Musique Diffusion Française, it must also be emphasised that this formula of words, not taken up in subsequent case-law, belongs in the particular context of the case which gave rise to the judgment in KNP BTv Commission. In that case, the applicant essentially complained that the Commission took account of the value of sales internal to the group in order to determine its market shares. Nevertheless, the Court held that to be valid for the reasons stated. Therefore it cannot be inferred from this that the penalty imposed on ADM is disproportionate.’
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