Shell Petroleum NV and Others v European Commission (T-343/06)
law://eu/cjeu/2006/t-343-06/para_190@2026-11-14
Key facts
Court
General Court · Sixth Chamber
Case
T-343/06 · ECLI:EU:T:2012:478
Decided
27 Sept 2012
Procedure
Action for annulment
Applicants
Shell Petroleum NV; The Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd; Shell Nederland Verkoopmaatschappij BV; represented initially by O. Brouwer, W. Knibbeler and S. Verschuur, and subsequently by O. Brouwer, W. Knibbeler and P. van den Berg, lawyers
190The applicants submit that the Commission had no evidence to claim that SNV played a prominent role in the pre-meetings between suppliers. They take the view that several suppliers were involved in the organisation, logistics and leadership of those meetings. The statement made by BP in that regard was merely a suggestion, which was not corroborated by any other information. However, other statements by BP and Kuwait Petroleum show that those meetings were led and organised not by one, but by several, suppliers. In any event, the sole statement made by BP, the accuracy of which the applicants dispute, cannot constitute sufficient evidence according to the case-law (Case T-337/94Enso-Gutzeit v Commission [1998] ECR II-1571, paragraph 91, and Joined Cases T-67/00, T-68/00, T-71/00 and T-78/00JFE Engineering v Commission [2004] ECR II-2501, paragraph 219). As regards the internal HBG document of 23 April 2001, the applicants submit that it has no probative force and that, in any event, it could not be taken into account in the contested decision without infringing their rights of defence, since it was merely annexed to the statement of objections, without being referred to therein (Shell v Commission, paragraph 187 above, paragraphs 55 and 56). Lastly, there are no grounds for considering that SNV reported on the bitumen consultations to the suppliers who had not attended those consultations and, furthermore, there is no such argument in the contested decision.