The Court of Justice of the European Union (”CJEU”) dismissed two appeals brought by Alliance One International Inc. (“AOI”), in which AOI sought the annulment of the judgments of the General Court (“GC”) handed down on appeals against the Commission’s Spanish raw tobacco cartel decision. In its decision of October 2004, the Commission found that Agroexpansión SA (“Agroexpansión”), one of the four undertakings engaged in the initial processing of raw tobacco in Spain, had participated in the raw tobacco cartel in Spain during 1996-2001. The Commission granted a 20 % reduction to Agroexpansión for cooperation in the cartel investigation and imposed a fine totaling EUR 2.59 million on the company. Dimon Inc. (“Dimon”), which merged with the American company Standard Commercial Group in 2005 and thereby established AOI, was held jointly and severally liable for the payment of the imposed fine as Agroexpansión, which had in November 1997 been acquired by Intabex Netherlands BV (“Intabex”) and the latter had, in turn, been acquired by Dimon in April 1997. Agroexpansión and AOI appealed the Commission’s decisions to the GC which, firstly, further reduced the fine imposed on Agroexpansión by 5 % and secondly, in relation to AOI, the GC found that the Commission had erred in holding Dimon liable for the infringement by Agroexpansión in respect of the period prior to Intabex’s purchase of Agroexpansión. On appeal to the CJEU, the CJEU dismissed the two appeals brought by AOI and the cross-appeal brought by the Commission. According to the CJEU, where the entire capital of a subsidiary is held by its parent company, the Commission may presume that the parent company actually exercises decisive influence over the commercial policy of its subsidiary. However, the Commission is not bound to rely exclusively on that presumption and is able to use the ‘dual basis’ method in establishing that a parent company actually exercises decisive influence over its subsidiary by means of other evidence. In the case at hand, the Commission had relied on factual evidence to establish that the parent company actually exercised such influence on its subsidiary. The CJEU stated that the findings made by the GC in relation to the ‘dual basis’ method were based on its interpretation of the Commission’s decision and not solely on the explanations produced by the Commission after the adoption of the decision. The CJEU confirmed that the GC did not err in law in doing so. Further, the GC did not err in law in finding that the Commission had applied the ‘dual basis’ method in the same way to all the parent companies concerned, including AOI. Sources: Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union C 679/11 P, 26/09/2013 and judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union C 668/11 P 26/09/2013