Judgment_paragraph 78 · Orange v European Commission (T-402/13)

78The starting point for the preliminary investigation stage is the date on which the Commission, in exercise of the powers conferred on it by Articles 18 and 20 of Regulation No 1/2003, takes measures which involve the allegation of an infringement and have major repercussions on the situation of the undertakings under suspicion. It is not until the beginning of the inter partes administrative stage that the undertaking concerned is informed, by means of the notification of the statement of objections, of all the essential evidence on which the Commission relies at that stage of the procedure and that that undertaking has a right of access to the file in order to ensure that its rights of defence are effectively exercised. Consequently, it is only after notification of the statement of objections that the undertaking concerned is able to rely in full on its rights of defence. If those rights were extended to the period preceding the notification of the statement of objections, the effectiveness of the Commission’s investigation would be compromised, since the undertaking concerned would already be able, at the preliminary investigation stage, to identify the information known to the Commission, hence the information that could still be concealed from it (see, to that effect, AC-Treuhand v Commission, paragraph 77 above, EU:T:2008:256, paragraph 48 and the case-law cited).