Shell Petroleum NV and Others v European Commission (T-343/06)
law://eu/cjeu/2006/t-343-06/para_193@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
193The Commission submits that the Courts of the European Union have already considered that a cartel could have two leaders (Case T-59/02Archer Daniels Midland v Commission [2006] ECR II-3627, paragraphs 299 to 301). In the present case, it is clear from the statements of an SNV employee of 24 September 2003, and of a Kuwait Petroleum employee that SNV represented the suppliers that were not present, that it generally initiated the meetings on behalf of all of the suppliers and that it played the role of opponent to KWS. The statement by the Kuwait Petroleum employee has clear probative value as he had cooperated directly with the employee who participated in all of those meetings and was sometimes identified as having attended those meetings himself. It states, moreover, that the fact that the suppliers had together pre-defined a plan before each meeting has no effect on the classification of leader, as the Courts of the European Union do not require an undertaking to dictate the behaviour of others in order for it to be described as leader (BASF v Commission, paragraph 140 above, paragraph 374). Moreover, as regards providing information to the suppliers who did not participate directly in the meetings, the Commission does not consider that to constitute a decisive factor in classification as leader of a bilateral cartel. Lastly, it points out that it considered that SNV played the role of leader at all stages of the cartel on the basis of several factors, not merely on the fact that SNV initiated the meetings and acted as spokesperson for the suppliers.