Judgment_paragraph 42 · Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd and Nippon Steel Corp. v Commission of the European Communities (C-403/04 P, C-405/04 P)

42At paragraph 179 of the judgment under appeal, the Court of First Instance referred to the case-law according to which the Commission is required to produce sufficiently precise and consistent evidence to support the conviction that the infringement was committed. At paragraph 180 of the judgment, it observed that it is sufficient if the body of evidence relied on by the Commission, viewed as a whole, meets that requirement. Next, at paragraph 181, the Court of First Instance recalled that it follows from the actual text of Article 81(1) EC that agreements between undertakings are prohibited, regardless of their effect, where they have an anticompetitive object.