Judgment_paragraph 55 · Printeos, SA and Others v European Commission (T-95/15)

55It follows that, on the basis of the reasons given in the contested decision, the applicants were not in a position effectively to dispute the merits of the Commission’s approach in the light of the principle of equal treatment, and the Court would not have been able fully to exercise its powers of judicial review with regard to whether that principle had been complied with (see the second plea in law). In particular, having regard to recitals 91 and 92 of the contested decision, it is not possible to understand or assess whether Hamelin and the other undertakings concerned were in comparable or different situations or whether the Commission treated them equally or differently. On that basis, it is therefore even less possible to ascertain whether equal treatment of the different situations of the undertakings concerned, pursuant to paragraph 37 of the Guidelines, essentially on the ground of the ‘mono-product’ nature of their business and, in part, on equitable grounds, or different treatment of comparable situations, including the application of different rates of reduction, were objectively justified. The perfunctory statement of reasons given in recital 92 of the contested decision is capable of giving the misleading impression that the main reason for the horizontal adjustment of the basic amounts for the undertakings concerned was the fact that they were all in situations that were, at the very least, comparable, on account of the ‘mono-product’ nature of their businesses. That was not the case with Hamelin, as the Commission acknowledged in the course of the proceedings.