Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2000:159
Date: 2000-06-21
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Single Judge
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Milk products;Non-contractual liability
Concepts: Basis of liability
Procedure: Action for damages - unfounded
Origin: France

Summary of the Judgment 
Non-contractual liability — Conditions — Unlawful conduct of the institutions — Milk 
producers deprived of reference quantities under the additional levy scheme following 
their suspension of deliveries under conversion premium arrangements — Producer not 
resuming production on expiry of his conversion undertaking — Breach of the principle of 
protection of legitimate expectations — None 
(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para, (now Art. 288 EC, second para.); Council Regulations 
Nos 1078/77 and 857/84) 
II - 2457 
SUMMARY — CASE T-537/93 
The Community cannot be held liable, as a 
result of the application of Regulation 
No 857/84 fixing, within the context of 
the additional levy scheme for milk, the 
reference quantity for each producer on the 
basis of the production delivered during a 
reference year, to a producer who, follow­
ing an undertaking under Regulation 
No 1078/77 to convert his herd for a 
specified period, did not resume milk 
production after the end of the conversion 
period, although he was in a position to do 
so. 
While the producer did ask to be allocated 
a reference quantity several years after that 
period, he cannot claim to have had a 
legitimate expectation in the possibility of 
resuming milk production at some unspe­
cified future date. In the sphere of the 
common organisations of the market, 
whose purpose involves constant adjust­
ments to meet changes in the economic 
situation, economic operators cannot legiti­
mately expect that they will not be subject 
to restrictions which may arise out of 
future rules of market or structural policy. 
(see paras 37, 41-42) 
II - 2458