Judgment_paragraph 47 · Printeos, SA and Others v European Commission (T-95/15)

47Contrary to what is claimed by the Commission, in the light of the requirements laid down in Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, in conjunction with Article 263 TFEU on the one hand, and Article 31 of Regulation No 1/2003 on the other (see, to that effect, judgment of 8 December 2011, Chalkor v Commission, C‑386/10 P, EU:C:2011:815, paragraphs 52 to 67), as referred to in paragraph 41 of the Settlement Notice, those principles are applicable mutatis mutandis to the obligation the Commission is under, by virtue of the second paragraph of Article 296 TFEU, to state the reasons for the decision imposing fines which it adopts at the conclusion of a settlement procedure, in which it is assumed that the undertaking concerned accepts only the maxim amount of the fine proposed. Indeed, it is in the light of the provisions of primary and secondary law referred to above that the Court of Justice has emphasised the special importance attached to the Commission’s duty to state the reasons for its decisions imposing fines in competition cases and, in particular, to explain the weighting and assessment of the various factors taken into account in determining the amount of fines, and to the court’s duty to verify of its own motion whether such reasons have been given (see, to that effect, judgment of 8 December 2011, Chalkor v Commission, C 386/10 P, EU:C:2011:815, paragraph 61).