231There are few references to non-settling parties, which includes the HSBC companies, and, contrary to what those companies suggest, there are no such references in Section 5 of the settlement decision, headed ‘Legal assessment’. Moreover, as is apparent from the findings set out in particular in paragraph 226 above, those references are merely descriptive and do not constitute any assessment, whether express or implied, of the legal situation of those companies. In a hybrid procedure which led to the successive adoption of two decisions, those references appear to be objectively necessary in order to establish the liability of the settling parties.
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