For the purposes of the present appeal, it must first be stated that the Civil Service Tribunal recalled that any decision relating to a specific individual which is taken under the Staff Regulations and adversely affects that person must state the reasons on which it is based, on the one hand, to enable the competent court to review the legality of the decision and, on the other, to provide the person concerned with the information necessary to allow him to ascertain whether or not the decision is well founded and to enable him to decide whether to bring an action. It added, however, referring to Case C‑254/95 P Parliament v Innamorati ...[+++][1996] ECR I‑3423, paragraphs 24 to 28, that, as far as concerns decisions taken by a selection board in a competition, the obligation to state reasons must be reconciled with observance of the secrecy surrounding the proceedings of selection boards by virtue of Article 6 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations, secrecy which was instituted with a view to guaranteeing the independence of selection boards and the objectivity of their proceedings. Thus, observance of this secrecy precludes both disclosure of the attitudes adopted by individual members of selection boards and disclosure of any factors relating to individual or comparative assessments of candidates and that the obligation to state the reasons on which decisions of a selection board in a competition are based must take account of the nature of the proceedings concerned, which, at the stage of examination of the abilities of the candidates, are primarily comparative in character and accordingly covered by the secrecy inherent in those proceedings (paragraphs 30 and 31 of the judgment under appeal).

As mentioned above (23), the addressees of the SO were given the opportunity to submit additional written comments in February and March 2012, supplementing or modifying their first replies to the SO on the basis of their access to the Spanish documents.

Third, the rights of defence were fully safeguarded as, once they obtained access to the Spanish documents, the addressees of the SO were allowed to submit additional comments, including any modification of their first reply to the SO (26).

Secondly, inasmuch as it complains that the Court of First Instance held, in paragraphs 44 to 52 of the judgment under appeal, that the three-dimensional shapes of the pouches in respect of which registration is sought as Community trade marks do not have a sufficient number of design features to fulfil their function of indicating origin, that part of the plea seeks to challenge the factual assessment made by the Court of First Instance and must be declared inadmissible for the reasons set out in paragraph 35 of the present judgment.

Firstly, inasmuch as it complains that the Court of First Instance held, in paragraphs 37 and 38 of the judgment under appeal, that the perception of the relevant public is not necessarily the same in the case of a three-dimensional trade mark, consisting of the appearance of the product itself, as in the case of a word or figurative mark, and that the average consumer perceives the shape of drinks packaging as an indication of the commercial origin of the product only if that shape is likely to be perceived from the outset as such an indication, that part of the plea is unfounded for the reasons set out in paragraphs 28 to 30 of the present judgment.

an addressee of a Commission's statement of objections making known its views on the objections (42);