Quanta Storage, Inc. v European Commission.

• Jurisdiction: European Union
• ECLI: ECLI:EU:C:2022:483
• Date: 16 June 2022
• Docket Number: C-699/19
• Celex Number: 62019CJ0699
• Court: Court of Justice (European Union)

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Fourth Chamber)

16 June 2022 ( *1 )

(Appeal – Competition – Agreements, decisions and concerted practices – Optical disk drives – Decision finding an infringement of Article 101 TFEU and of Article 53 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area of 2 May 1992 – Single and continuous infringement – Definition – Collusive agreements relating to procurement events concerning optical disk drives for notebook and desktop computers organised by two computer manufacturers)

In Case C‑699/19 P,

APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 20 September 2019,

Quanta Storage Inc., established in Taoyuan City (Taiwan), represented by O. Geiss, Rechtsanwalt, B. Hartnett, avocat, T. Siakka, Solicitor, and W. Sparks, advocaat,

appellant,

the other party to the proceedings being:

European Commission, represented by P. Berghe, M. Farley, F. van Schaik and C. Zois, acting as Agents,

defendant at first instance,

THE COURT (Fourth Chamber),

composed of K. Jürimäe (Rapporteur), President of the Third Chamber, acting as President of the Fourth Chamber, S. Rodin and N. Piçarra, Judges,

Advocate General: G. Pitruzzella,

Registrar: A. Calot Escobar,

having regard to the written procedure,

after hearing the Opinion of the Advocate General at the sitting on 3 June 2021,

gives the following

Judgment

1 By its appeal, Quanta Storage Inc. (‘the appellant’) seeks to have set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 12 July 2019, Quanta Storage v Commission (T‑772/15, EU:T:2019:519, ‘the judgment under appeal’), by which the General Court dismissed its action seeking, principally, annulment in part of Commission Decision C(2015) 7135 final of 21 October 2015 relating to a proceeding under Article 101 TFEU and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement (Case AT.39639 – Optical disk drives) (‘the decision at issue’), in so far as it concerns the appellant, or, in the alternative, a reduction of the amount of the fine imposed on the appellant.

Legal context

2 Article 23(2) and (3) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Articles [101 and 102 TFEU] (OJ 2003 L 1, p. 1) provides: ‘2. The [European] Commission may by decision impose fines on undertakings and associations of undertakings where, either intentionally or negligently: (a) they infringe Article [101 or 102 TFEU]; or (b) they contravene a decision ordering interim measures under Article 8; or (c) they fail to comply with a commitment made binding by a decision pursuant to Article 9. … Where the infringement of an association relates to the activities of its members, the fine shall not exceed 10% of the sum of the total turnover of each member active on the market affected by the infringement of the association. 3. In fixing the amount of the fine, regard shall be had both to the gravity and to the duration of the infringement.’

3 Article 27(1) and (2) of that regulation provides: ‘1. Before taking decisions as provided for in Articles 7, 8, 23 and Article 24(2), the Commission shall give the undertakings or associations of undertakings which are the subject of the proceedings conducted by the Commission the opportunity of being heard on the matters to which the Commission has taken objection. The Commission shall base its decisions only on objections on which the parties concerned have been able to comment. Complainants shall be associated closely with the proceedings. 2. The rights of defence of the parties concerned shall be fully respected in the proceedings. They shall be entitled to have access to the Commission’s file, subject to the legitimate interest of undertakings in the protection of their business secrets. The right of access to the file shall not extend to confidential information and internal documents of the Commission or the competition authorities of the Member States. In particular, the right of access shall not extend to correspondence between the Commission and the competition authorities of the Member States, or between the latter, including documents drawn up pursuant to Articles 11 and 14. Nothing in this paragraph shall prevent the Commission from disclosing and using information necessary to prove an infringement.’

4 Article 31 of that regulation is worded as follows: ‘The Court of Justice shall have unlimited jurisdiction to review decisions whereby the Commission has fixed a fine or periodic penalty payment. It may cancel, reduce or increase the fine or periodic penalty payment imposed.’

5 As regards the calculation of the fines, points 6 and 13 of the Guidelines on the method of setting fines imposed pursuant to Article 23(2)(a) of Regulation No 1/2003 (OJ 2006 C 210, p. 2) provide: ‘6. The combination of the value of sales to which the infringement relates and of the duration of the infringement is regarded as providing an appropriate proxy to reflect the economic importance of the infringement as well as the relative weight of each undertaking in the infringement. Reference to these factors provides a good indication of the order of magnitude of the fine and should not be regarded as the basis for an automatic and arithmetical calculation method. … 13. In determining the basic amount of the fine to be imposed, the Commission will take the value of the undertaking’s sales of goods or services to which the infringement directly or indirectly relates in the relevant geographic area within [the European Economic Area (EEA)]. …’

Background to the dispute and the decision at issue

6 The background to the dispute is set out in paragraphs 1 to 32 of the judgment under appeal and, for the purposes of the present proceedings, can be summarised as follows.

7 Quanta Storage operates in the computer storage devices sector and is engaged in the research and development, design, manufacture and supply of optical disk drives (‘ODDs’). It was established in February 1999. It is a public company listed at the Taipei stock exchange in Taiwan (Republic of China).

8 The infringement at issue concerns ODDs used, inter alia, in personal computers (desktops and notebooks) produced by Dell Inc. and Hewlett Packard (‘HP’).

9 Dell and HP are the two most important original equipment manufacturers on the global market for personal computers. Those two companies use standard procurement procedures carried out on a global basis which involve, inter alia, quarterly negotiations over a worldwide price and overall purchase volumes with a limited number of pre-qualified ODD suppliers.

10 The procurement procedures include requests for quotations, electronic requests for quotations, internet negotiations, e-auctions and bilateral (offline) negotiations. At the close of a procurement procedure, customers allocate volumes to participating ODD suppliers depending on their quoted prices.

11 On 14 January 2009, the Commission received a request for immunity under its Notice on Immunity from fines and reduction of fines in cartel cases (OJ 2006 C 298, p. 17) lodged by Koninklijke Philips NV (‘Philips’). On 29 January and 2 March 2009, that request was supplemented to include, alongside that company, Lite-On IT Corporation and their joint venture Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions Corporation (‘PLDS’).

12 On 30 June 2009, the Commission granted conditional immunity to Philips, Lite-On IT and PLDS.

13 On 18 July 2012, the Commission sent a statement of objections to 13 ODD suppliers, including the appellant (‘the statement of objections’), in which it stated that those companies had infringed Article 101 TFEU and Article 53 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area of 2 May 1992 (OJ 1994 L 1, p. 3; ‘the EEA Agreement’) by participating in a cartel concerning ODDs from 5 February 2004 until 29 June 2009, consisting in orchestrating their conduct with respect to invitations to tender organised by two computer manufacturers, Dell and HP.

14 On 26 October 2012, in reply to the statement of objections, the appellant submitted its written comments. A hearing was held on 29 and 30 November 2012, in which all the addressees of the statement of objections took part.

15 On 21 October 2015, the Commission adopted the decision at issue.

16 In that decision, the Commission considered that the cartel participants had coordinated their competitive behaviour, at least between 23 June 2004 and 25 November 2008. It specified that that coordination took place through a network of parallel bilateral contacts. It stated that the cartel participants sought to accommodate their volumes on the market and ensure that the prices remained at levels higher than they would have been in the absence of those bilateral contacts.

17 The Commission specified, in the decision at issue, that the coordination between the cartel participants concerned the customer accounts of Dell and HP. According to the Commission, in addition to bilateral negotiations with their ODD suppliers, Dell and HP applied standardised procurement procedures, which took place at least on a quarterly basis. The Commission stated that the cartel members used their network of bilateral contacts to manipulate those procurement procedures, thus thwarting their customers’ attempts to stimulate price competition.

18 According to the Commission, regular exchanges of information in particular enabled the cartel members to possess a very complex knowledge of their competitors’ intentions even...