Judgment_paragraph 51 · Altstoff Recycling Austria AG v European Commission (T-419/03)

51Examination of the partner agreements shows that they contain no formal territorial exclusivity clause for the benefit of collection and/or sorting partners. No provision has committed the applicant to bind itself to only a single collection and/or sorting partner in each region. Therefore it is the task of the General Court to examine whether the Commission has satisfactorily proved, in the particular circumstances of the relevant market, that these contracts, concluded for a given period with a single collection and/or sorting partner, in reality operate as an exclusive arrangement which restricts competition. It should subsequently be determined, if necessary, whether the restriction of competition identified is sufficiently great to constitute an infringement of Article 81(1) EC. In this regard, it should be borne in mind that, according to case-law, judicial review of Commission measures involving complex economic assessments must be confined to verifying whether the rules on procedure and on the statement of reasons have been complied with, whether the facts have been accurately stated and whether there has been any manifest error of appraisal or misuse of powers (see Case T-65/98 Van den Bergh Foods v Commission [2003] ECR II-4653, paragraph 80, and the case-law cited).

Altstoff Recycling Austria AG v European Commission (T-419/03)

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