Article considérant 131

(131) Pour la Commission, ainsi qu'elle l'a rappelé lors de l'audition sans obtenir de réponses de la part des entreprises, les documents cités aux considérants 62 à 67 et au considérant 100 constituent un faisceau d'indices sérieux, précis et concordants qui suffit pour prouver l'existence et le contenu de l'accord. En premier lieu, la déclaration faite par [...] Vallourec [...] est assez claire et précise et est corroborée par les autres documents. En second lieu, les entreprises japonaises ont reconnu ne pas pouvoir fournir de précisions quant aux réunions du club Europe-Japon: "NSC cannot exclude the possibility that some of its former employees who were responsible for the seamless tube business participated in such meetings prior to July 1995" (page 13548). "NSC cannot confirm whether its former employees attended meetings between European and Japanese producers and, if so, in what capacity they attended" (page 14159)(39). "SMI felt it important to stress that it relied on recollections of SMI employees since, without having documents and records, it could not be absolutely certain as to the accuracy of the employees' accounts" (page 14430)(40). "To the best of Mr. [...] (NKK) knowledge, there is no information other than that... contained in our reply dated 07 November 1997" (page 14493)(41). "The fact that KSC only has hearsay information concerning these meetings means that the information it can provide to the Commission is necessarily vague" (page 14616)(42).