No L 174/34 Official Journal of the European Communities 8.7. 94 COMMISSION DECISION of 6 June 1994 amending Decision 88/330/EEC relating to a proceeding pursuant to Article 85 of the EEC Treaty (IV/32.075 — Bayer/BP Chemicals) (Only the English and German texts are authentic) (94/384/EC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Council Regulation No 17 of 6 February 1962, First Regulation implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty ('), as last amended by the Act of Accession of Spain and Portugal, and in particular Articles 6 and 8 thereof, Having regard to a request submitted to the Commission in 1991 by Bayer AG (hereinafter referred to as ‘Bayer’), BP Chemicals International Ltd (‘BPCL’) and Erdél- chemie (‘EC’), seeking an amendment to. Commission Decision 88/330/EEC (3 (‘the Decision’), Having regard to the publication (}) pursuant to Article 19 (3) of Regulation No 17 of a summary of relevant changes which have occured since the Decision, in which the Commission had granted an exemption pursuant to Article 85 (3) in favour of the agreements between the abovementioned patties in the polyethylene sector, for a period ending on 2 October 1998, subject inter alia to the condition that Bayer, BPCL and EC close down, by the end of 1991, the older of the two low density polye- thylene (LDPE) units currently run by EC, unless the Commission stated that postponement was objectively justified, with respect to the requirements of Article 85 (3) and the purpose of the Decision by the situation in the polyethylene sector, After consulting the Advisory Committee on Restrictive Practices and Dominant Positions, Whereas : I. THE FACTS (1)  On 1 March 1988 a set of agreements between Bayer, BPCL and EC entered into force concerning the polyethylene sector, under which inter alia technical cooperation between BPCL and EC was () OJ No 13, 21. 2. 1962, p. 204/62. () OJ No L 150, 16. 6. 1988, p. 3. () O No C 44, 19. 2. 1992, p. 11. @ 3 ) established, and BPCL was appointed as distributor for EC’s production. Since the Decision was adopted the following changes have occurred : (a) the product manufactured at PE1 has changed considerably, namely by the replacement of general-purpose products with specific auto- clave grades; (b) BPCL shut down its 30-year old plant in Grangemouth in November 1989 (100 kilo- tonnes per year); (c) with the advent of more open access to east European markets, EC has decided to change the geographical mix of its LDPE products to take full advantage of the backlog demand on those markets. Before the end of 1991, the parties requested the Commission to amend point 2 of Article 2 of the Decision, under which the exemption was subject to the condition that Bayer, BPCL and EC close down the older of EC’s two LDPE units (PE1) by the end of 1991, unless the Commission were to state that the situation in the polyethylene sector objectively justified postponement in accordance with the requirements of Article 85 (3) and the purpose of the Decision. The parties requested that the closure of PE1 be postponed until the end of 1994. Following the publication pursuant to Article 19 (3) of Regulation No 17 of the above facts, in which the Commission announced its intention to author- ize the postponement of the PE1 closure date until the end of 1994, interested third parties, namely competitors in the polyethylene sector, sent their observations to the Commission, stating that in their opinion there were no grounds for postponing the closure of the older of EC’s LDPE facilities. These third parties said, in particular, that: (a) there is already enormous surplus production capacity of LDPE in Europe ; (b) demand for LDPE is not likely to increase in Europe for some time;