75However, the multiplication of the amount determined on the basis of the value of sales by the number of years of participation in the infringement may mean that, in the context of the 2006 Guidelines, the application of the 10 % ceiling laid down in Article 23[2] of Regulation No 1/2003 is now the rule rather than the exception for any undertaking which operates mainly on a single market and has participated in a cartel for over a year. In that case, any distinction on the basis of gravity or mitigating circumstances will as a matter of course no longer be capable of impacting on a fine which has been capped in order to be brought below the 10 % ceiling. The failure to draw a distinction with regard to the final fine that results presents a difficulty in terms of the principle that penalties must be specific to the offender and to the offence, which is inherent in the new methodology. It may require the Court to exercise fully its unlimited jurisdiction in those specific cases where the application of the 2006 Guidelines alone does not enable an appropriate distinction to be drawn. In the present case, however, the Court finds that this is not the case (see also, in that regard, paragraphs 81 et seq. below).
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