General Court (Second Chamber) 14 December 2006, T-259/02 to T-264/02 and T-271/02 (Raiffeisen Zentralbank Österreich AG and Others v Commission of the European Communities.)

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In joined cases concerning Commission Decision 2004/138/EC (the 'Lombard Club' cartel), the Court of First Instance upheld the Commission's finding that eight Austrian banks infringed Article 81(1) EC by participating in a comprehensive network of committees coordinating prices, charges, and conditions across the entire Austrian banking market from 1 January 1995 to 24 June 1998, constituting a single 'very serious' infringement capable of affecting trade between Member States by virtue of its territorial coverage of an entire Member State. The Court rejected challenges to the classification of the committees as a single overall cartel, the attribution of sector-wide market shares to lead institutions for fine-calculation purposes, and the applicants' claims for mitigating circumstances and enhanced leniency reductions, holding inter alia that implementation of the cartel sufficed to establish market impact without requiring econometric proof of price divergence. The Court partially annulled Article 3 of the decision solely in Case T-263/02, reducing the fine imposed on Österreichische Postsparkasse AG by one-half to EUR 3,795,000 on account of an error in the calculation of the joint market share of PSK and PSK-B, and rejected the Commission's counterclaim for an increase of RZB's fine.AI