Judgement of 26 September 2018, Case C-99/17 P, Infineon Technologies†

Abstract

On 26 September 2018, the Court of Justice handed down its judgment in Infineon Technologies AG’s appeal against the General Court’s judgment of 15 December 2016 (Judgments of 15 December 2016, Infineon Technologies v Commission, T-758/14, ECLI:EU:T:2016:737 and of 26 September 2018, Infineon Technologies v Commission, C-99/17 P, ECLI:EU:C:2018:773). The judgment was much awaited by observers of EU case law on the judicial review of fining decisions by the European Commission under Article 101 TFEU. The case had attracted a lot of interest after Advocate General Wathelet, in his opinion of 12 April 2018, had recommended that the General Court’s judgment be set aside on the grounds that the General Court had not reviewed each and every argument made by the applicant (Infineon) against the European Commission’s evidence of the ‘contacts’ Infineon was alleged to have had with its competitors on the European market for smart card chips (Case AT.39574, Smart Card Chips, decision of 3 September 2014).