Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2014:814
Date: 2014-09-25
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Eighth Chamber
Subject matter: Provisions governing the Institutions;Access to documents
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded;Action for annulment - inadmissible
Origin: Italy

summary of the pleas in law on which the application is based. The information given must be sufficiently clear and precise to enable the defendant to prepare the defence and the General Court to decide the case. In order to ensure legal certainty and the sound administration of justice, it is necessary for the essential facts and points of law on which the action is based to be apparent from the text of the application itself, even if only stated briefly, provided that the statement is coherent and comprehensible (order in Case T‑85/92 De Hoe v Commission [1993] ECR II‑523, paragraph 20, and order in Case T‑294/04 Internationaler Hilfsfonds v Commission [2005] ECR II‑2719, paragraph 23). 110 It must be observed that, in the present case, other than the abstract statement in the application of a plea alleging infringement of Article 4(6) of Regulation No 1049/2001 (see, in particular, paragraph 91 of the application), the applicants develop no argument in support of that plea. Indeed, they merely allege that ‘the Commission should have indicated precisely the author of the document at issue, its length and the length of its annexes, its reference number, and so on, so that the document could be identified’ and that ‘[i]n the absence of such identification of the [document at issue] by the “German authorities”, … the procedure was unfair’. 111 Since that allegation bears no relation to the application of Article 4(6) of Regulation No 1049/2001 in the present case, and relates instead to the duty to state reasons, as examined in paragraphs 78 to 86 above, it must be regarded as nor relevant for the purpose of supporting the present plea. 112 Moreover, it must be held that arguments put forward by the applicants in their reply cannot be examined by the Court, in particular, since they are based on aspects of the contested decision that were known at the time when the action was brought (see, to that effect, judgment of 21 October 2010 in Case T‑474/08 Umbach v Commission, not published in the ECR, paragraph 60). 113 Consequently, the third plea must be dismissed as inadmissible. 114 The action must accordingly be dismissed in its entirety. Costs 115 Under Article 87(3) of the Rules of Procedure, the Court may order the costs to be shared or the parties to bear their own costs if each party succeeds on some and fails on other heads, or where the circumstances are exceptional. 116 In the circumstances of the present case, it is appropriate to decide that each party must bear its own costs. On those grounds, THE GENERAL COURT (Eighth Chamber) hereby: 1. Dismisses the action; 2. Orders each party to bear its own costs. Gratsias Kancheva Wetter Delivered in open court in Luxembourg on 25 September 2014. [Signatures] * Language of the case: German.