Judgment_paragraph 48 · Printeos, SA and Others v European Commission (T-95/15)

48When the Commission decides to depart from the general methodology set out in the Guidelines, by which it limited the discretion it may itself exercise in setting the amount of fines, and relies, as in the present case, on paragraph 37 of the Guidelines, the requirements relating to the duty to state reasons must be complied with all the more rigorously. In that regard, it is appropriate to refer to the settled case-law to the effect that the Guidelines lay down a rule of conduct indicating the approach to be adopted from which the Commission cannot depart, in an individual case, without giving reasons which are compatible with, inter alia, the principle of equal treatment (see, to that effect, judgments of 30 May 2013, Quinn Barlo and Others v Commission, C‑70/12 P, not published, EU:C:2013:351, paragraph 53, and of 11 July 2013, Ziegler v Commission, C‑439/11 P, EU:C:2013:513, paragraph 60 and the case-law cited). Those reasons must be all the more specific because paragraph 37 of the Guidelines simply makes a vague reference to ‘the particularities of a given case’ and thus leaves the Commission a broad discretion where it decides, as in the present case, to make an exceptional adjustment of basic amount of the fines to be imposed on the undertakings concerned. In such a case, the Commission’s respect for the rights guaranteed by the EU legal order in administrative procedures, including the obligation to state reasons, is of even more fundamental importance (see, to that effect, judgment of 21 November 1991, Technische Universität München, C‑269/90, EU:C:1991:438, paragraph 14).