20For the sake of completeness, the General Court examined in paragraphs 71 to 76 of the judgment under appeal whether, in the contested decision, the Commission had committed an error of assessment in relation to the evidence submitted by the appellants or whether it had failed to take account of that evidence, in the following terms:71 In that regard, it must be held that the fact that the activities of the subsidiary differ, even completely, from the activities of the group or even the fact that the parent company has tried, without success moreover, to resell its subsidiary, is not capable of rebutting the presumption that RQ and RYPF are liable. Even though groups of undertakings and holding companies frequently have different business activities and sometimes sell some of their subsidiaries, they have already been regarded as constituting a single undertaking for the purpose of Article 81 EC (see, to that effect, Case T-330/01 Akzo Nobel v Commission [2006] ECR II-3389, paragraphs 78 and 82).72 Furthermore, the Commission, in reply to the request for documents made by the [appellants], submitted to the Court a document which included the minutes of RQ’s board of directors of 1998 to 2000 and which set out GQ’s financial results and a resolution relating to the sale of GQ’s holding in Silquímica, SA and to the sale of GQ’s real property. That document substantiates in all material respects the Commission’s findings in the contested decision. If RQ’s board of directors plays a significant role in several essential aspects of GQ’s strategy, such as the sale of real property or the sale of a holding, and reserves the power of final decision in that regard, it follows that it exerts a decisive influence on GQ’s conduct.73 As regards the argument relating to the lack of overlap in the membership of the organs of the applicant companies, it must be held that it is apparent from the letter of 5 April 2004 sent by GQ to the Commission and submitted by the [appellants] during the pre-litigation procedure that Mr [confidential] was both chairman of GQ’s board of directors from 1996 to 2000 and a member of RQ’s board of directors from 1998 to 1999. Moreover, it must be pointed out that, when questioned on that point at the hearing, the [appellants] conceded, at least implicitly, that there had been such an overlap.74 Similarly, the arguments alleging that the Commission did not, in the contested decision, examine the factual evidence which showed that only GQ’s executives decided on and implemented the company’s commercial policy, without RQ’s being informed beforehand or giving its authorisation, cannot succeed in the light of the case-law cited above. The same is true of the claims that the information given to RQ by GQ did not concern the commercial policy but the financial results of the subsidiary.75 As regards the relationship between GQ and Repsol Italia, it must be held that the Commission, in the contested decision, is right to rebut the [appellants’] argument relating to an alleged conflict of interests between GQ and its parent companies by stating that RYPF consolidates the accounts of the group, which is made up of a number of subsidiaries, including GQ and Repsol Italia. Furthermore, the Commission is also right to find that that relationship is such as to strengthen the presumption that there is a single undertaking.76 In those circumstances, it must be concluded, as did the Commission at recital 264 [in the preamble] to the contested decision, that the [appellants] have not managed to rebut the presumption that the parent companies are liable.’
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