Judgment_paragraph 39 · Coats Holdings Ltd v European Commission (T-439/07)

39Where, in establishing an infringement of Articles 81 EC and 82 EC, the Commission relies on documentary evidence, the burden is on the undertakings concerned not merely to submit an alternative explanation for the facts found by the Commission, but to show that the evidence relied on in the contested decision is insufficient to establish the existence of an infringement (see, to that effect, Joined Cases T-25/95, T-26/95, T-30/95, T-31/95, T-32/95, T-34/95, T-35/95, T-36/95, T-37/95, T-38/95, T-39/95, T-42/95, T-43/95, T-44/95, T-45/95, T-46/95, T-48/95, T-50/95, T-51/95, T-52/95, T-53/95, T-54/95, T-55/95, T-56/95, T-57/95, T-58/95, T-59/95, T-60/95, T-61/95, T-62/95, T-63/95, T-64/95, T-65/95, T-68/95, T-69/95, T-70/95, T-71/95, T-87/95, T-88/95, T-103/95 and T-104/95 Cimenteries CBR and Others v Commission (known as ‘Cement’) [2000] ECR II-491, paragraphs 725 to 728, and Joined Cases T-67/00, T-68/00, T-71/00 and T-78/00 JFE Engineering and Others v Commission [2004] ECR II-2501, paragraph 187). It must be considered that, in a case such as the present one, where the Commission relies on direct evidence, the burden is on the undertakings concerned to show that the evidence adduced by the Commission is insufficient. Such a reversal of the burden of proof does not infringe the principle of the presumption of innocence (see, to that effect, Case C-235/92 P Montecatini v Commission [1999] ECR I-4539, paragraph 181).