Chapter IV, Article 8, Paragraph 3. · Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/814

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3.Without prejudice to paragraph 4, the Commission shall also provide access to all documents on its file, without any redactions, under terms of disclosure to be set out in a Commission decision. The terms of disclosure shall be determined in accordance with the following:

(a)Access to documents shall only be granted to a limited number of specified external legal and economic counsel and external technical experts engaged by the addressee and whose names shall be communicated to the Commission in advance.

(b)The specified external legal and economic counsel and external technical experts shall be undertakings, employees of undertakings or in a situation comparable to that of employees of undertakings. All of them shall be bound by the terms of disclosure.

(c)Persons listed as specified external legal and economic counsel and external technical experts shall not, at the date of the Commission decision setting out the terms of disclosure, be in an employment relationship with the addressee or in a situation comparable to that of an employee of the addressee. Should the specified external legal or economic counsel or external technical experts subsequently enter into such a relationship with the addressee or with other undertakings active on the same markets as the addressee during the investigation or during the three years following the end of the Commission’s investigation, the specified external legal or economic counsel or external technical expert and the addressee shall promptly inform the Commission about the terms of such relationship. The specified external legal or economic counsel or external technical expert in question shall also provide the Commission with an assurance that they no longer have access to the information or documents on the file to which they were given access according to point (a) and which were not made available to the addressee by the Commission. They shall also provide assurances to the Commission that they will continue to comply with the requirements referred to in point (d) of this paragraph.

(d)Specified external legal and economic counsel and external technical experts shall not disclose any of the documents provided or their content to any natural or legal person that is not bound by the terms of disclosure and shall not use any of the documents provided or their content other than for the purposes referred to in Article 8(8) below.

(e)The Commission shall specify, in the terms of disclosure, the technical means of the disclosure and its duration. Disclosure may be made by electronic means or (for some or all documents) physically at the Commission’s premises.