20150731061617122015/C 270/433052015TC27020150817EN01ENINFO_JUDICIAL20150605343522

(Case T-305/15)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant: Airdata AG (Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany) (represented by: E. Niitväli and M. Reysen, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

—annul the Commission decision C(2014) 4443 final, published on 13 March 2015, dated 2 July 2014, adopted in matter M.7018 Telefonica Deutschland/E-Plus pursuant to Article 8(2) of Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (1), and

—order the Commission to pay the costs of the procedure.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on two pleas in law.

1.First plea in law, alleging that the contested decision suffers from the breach of an important procedural duty as defined in Article 296(2) TFEU, as the Commission has failed to provide adequate reason for the measure it has adopted.

—The Commission failed to provide sufficiently clear and comprehensive reasons for its decision to accept certain commitments aimed at offsetting the serious competitive concerns it had identified in the course of the merger control investigation. The decision failed in particular to provide reasons why the Commission assumes that a third party beneficiary of the commitments would be able to effectively compete with the assets in question.

2.Second plea in law, alleging that the Commission failed in its duty to correctly apply the law as its decision suffers from a substantively incorrect application of EU merger control provisions.

—Parts of the commitments will most likely not be implemented, and parts will merely preserve the status quo ante, but they won’t contribute to an increased intensity of competition. The remaining parts are insufficient to offset the serious harm to competition caused by the transaction in question.

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(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings (OJ 2004 L 24, p. 1).