In its HeidelbergCement judgment of 10 March 2016 (C-247/14 P), the Court of Justice held that a brief, vague and generic statement of reasons does not suffice to justify an information request. This was decided by the Court pursuant to the general principle that the statement of reasons for measures adopted by EU institutions must be appropriate to the measure at issue and must disclose clearly and unequivocally the reasoning followed by the institution.
In this case, the European Commission carried out ex officio inspections at cement companies, including HeidelbergCement, in 2008 and 2009. These inspections were followed by the issuing of requests for information. After having initiated proceedings for suspected infringements of Article 101 TFEU by the end of 2010, the Commission sent another request for information, 94 pages long and containing 11 series of questions, on 30 March 2011. In response to this request for information, HeidelbergCement brought an action for annulment. HeidelbergCement was of the opinion that the Commission had not adequately reasoned the alleged infringements in the information request and had imposed a disproportionate burden having regard to the volume of information requested. The EU General Court confirmed the lawfulness of the request for information.
The Court of Justice quashed the General Court's judgment, holding that the Commission had not adequately stated the reasons for the request for information. Although the Court acknowledged that, in the context of an investigation, the Commission is not obliged to precisely define the relevant market, nor to set out the exact legal nature of the presumed infringements, it held that the statement of reasons in this case was excessively brief, vague, generic and, in some respects, ambiguous. The Commission is obliged to indicate as precisely as possible what is being investigated and the matters to which the investigation relates. In this case, the Commission already had information that would have allowed it to present the suspicions of infringements more precisely.
This judgment of the Court of Justice emphasises that the European Commission, in the context of investigations, does not have an unlimited ability to gather information and that requests for information must clearly disclose the reasons for the investigation.