167It is appropriate to adopt a restrictive interpretation of the conditions laid down for applying the last paragraph of point 23(b) of the 2002 Leniency Notice, by limiting it to cases in which a company party to a cartel provides the Commission with new information relating to the gravity or the duration of the infringement, and by excluding cases in which a company has merely provided information which strengthens the evidence of the existence of the infringement. In that regard, it should be recalled that, since the leniency procedure is an exception to the rule that an undertaking must be punished for any infringement of the rules of competition law, the relevant rules must for that reason be interpreted strictly. Moreover, the effectiveness of leniency programmes would be undermined if undertakings no longer had an incentive to be the first to submit information revealing the existence of a cartel to the Commission.…