Power of inquiry : The General Court confirms the validity of the Commission’s power of inquiry and the absence of fundamental rights infringement, even when no court order has been previously issued and fully validates the accessory inspections practice (Deutsche Bahn)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. On 6 September 2013, the General Court of the European Union delivered an interesting, albeit questionable, judgment in Joined Cases T-289/11, T-290/11 and T-521/11 (Deutsche Bahn AG and Others v Commission) concerning the limits of the Commission's powers of inspection. In the present case, the Commission, suspecting that Deutsche Bahn, the incumbent operator in the German railway sector, has implemented an abuse of a dominant position consisting of a potentially unjustified preferential treatment granted by its subsidiary DB Energie GmbH to other subsidiaries of the DB group, in particular in the form of a system of rebates for the supply of traction