Court of Justice dismisses appeal in bananas cartel

The European Court of Justice has dismissed the appeal brought by banana importer Pacific Fruit group against a General Court judgment of 2015.

In October 2011 the European Commission imposed a fine of EUR 8,919,000 on Pacific Fruit for its participation with Chiquita in a price fixing cartel for bananas in Greece, Italy and Portugal.

As part of its investigation, the Commission received copy documents from the Italian finance police. The Court has confirmed that the documents could be used as evidence in proving the competition law infringement.  The Court ruled that documents transferred by the national authorities are admissible in competition law proceedings provided that their transfer has not been ruled unlawful under national law.  The Court concluded that the rules on cooperation between authorities in the European Competition Network do not prevent the Commission from using information transferred by the national authorities merely on account of the fact that the documents have been obtained for other purposes.

The Court upheld the General Court’s judgment in its entirety in finding that the infringement could be characterised as restrictive of competition by object without the need to prove effects and it found that the General Court had not erred in its review of the fine.

Case C-469/15 P - FSL Holdings and Others v European Commission, judgment of 27 April 2017.