Types of Information in Cooperation

What kind of information?

What kind of information can be requested by a national court is explained in paras. 21 to 22 of the Notice: the information requested will be mainly documents, but also information of a procedural nature can be requested (e.g. whether the Commission has initiated proceedings in a given case, or when a decision is likely to be taken).

More about Types of Information in Cooperation

Only information already in the possession of the Commission can be asked for. Consequently, no investigation should be carried out to get (further) information with the sole purpose of transmitting that information to the national court.

More about the Subject

The request for information must be concrete. In case of a general request (e.g. for a whole file in a given case), the national court should be asked whether it can specify more precisely the information it seeks.

Other Considerations

Where possible, the information transmitted should be in the language of the request. There is no obligation, though, to translate information with a view to transmission.

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The basic philosophy of Article 4(3) EU Treaty (Art. 15(1) Reg. 1/2003) is that the Commission should transmit whatever information in its possession the national court asks for. There are however some exceptions based on the case law of the Courts which are spelt out in paras. 23 to 26 of the Notice. These principles can be summarised as follows: • When the information requested is covered by professional secrecy (such as business secrets), DG Competition has to ask the national court whether it can and will guarantee protection of that information: – when the court gives such guarantee, the information should be transmitted, indicating which parts cannot be publicly disclosed; – when the court cannot give such guarantee, a non-confidential version of the information should be transmitted where possible. • The Commission may refuse in specific circumstances to transmit information for overriding reasons relating to the need to avoid interference with its functioning and independence, in particular by jeopardising the accomplishment of the tasks entrusted to it (see para. 26 of the Notice).

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A national court should always receive the information that is publicly available via requests based on Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (OJ 2001, L 145/43).

Resources

See Also

References

• Information about Types of Information in Cooperation in the Antitrust Manual of Procedures for the application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU (Internal DG Competition)

Further Reading

• Information about Types of Information in Cooperation in EU Competition Procedure, 3rd. Edition, Edited by Luis Ortiz Blanco (Oxford University Press)