Judgment_paragraph 49 · Nederlandse Federatieve Vereniging voor de Groothandel op Elektrotechnisch Gebied v Commission of the European Communities (C-105/04 P)

49The excessive duration of the first phase of the administrative procedure may have an effect on the future ability of the undertakings concerned to defend themselves, in particular by reducing the effectiveness of the rights of the defence in the second phase of the procedure. In effect, as the Advocate General observes at point 129 of her Opinion, the more time that elapses between a measure of investigation such as, in the present case, the sending of the warning letter and the notification of the statement of objections, the more unlikely it becomes that exculpatory evidence relating to the infringements set out in the statement of objections can be obtained, owing in particular to the changes that may have come about in the composition of the managing boards of the undertakings concerned and to the movements affecting their other staff. In its analysis of the reasonable time principle, the Court of First Instance did not have sufficient regard to that aspect of observance of the principle.