The EU Court of First Instance annuls a Commission’s decision imposing a fine on a soda producer for market sharing due to procedural reasons (Solvay)

Case T-30/91 Solvay SA v Commission of the European Communities* 1. Even if the use by the Commission, when it adopts a decision applying Article 85(1) of the Treaty, of inculpatory documents not disclosed during the administrative procedure to one of the undertakings charged were to be characterized as unlawful on the grounds that such use infringed that undertaking's rights of defence, such a procedural defect could result only in those documents being excluded as evidence. Far from leading to the annulment of the entire decision, that exclusion would be relevant only in so far as the objection made by the Commission in relation thereto could be proved only by reference to those documents. 2. The purpose of providing access to the file in competition cases is to enable the