Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2002:7
Date: 2002-01-17
Language of the case: Dutch
Court formation: Third Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Overseas countries and territories;Sugar
Concepts: Applications by natural or legal persons
Procedure: Action for annulment - inadmissible

Summary of the Judgment 
Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual 
concern to them — Regulation introducing safeguard measures in respect of sugar and 
mixtures of sugar and cocoa originating in the overseas countries and territories — 
Action brought by an undertaking producing those goods and exporting them from the 
overseas countries and territories to the Community — Inadmissible 
(Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 2423/1999; Council Decision 
91/482, Art. 109(1)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-47/00 
Natural or legal persons can be considered 
to be individually concerned by a measure 
of general application adopted by a Com­
munity institution only if the measure in 
question affects them because of certain 
attributes which are peculiar to them or by 
reason of circumstances in which they are 
differentiated from all other persons. Regu­
lation No 2423/1999 introducing safe­
guard measures in respect of sugar falling 
within CN code 1701 and mixtures of 
sugar and cocoa falling within CN codes 
1806 10 30 and 1806 10 90 originating in 
the overseas countries and territories 
(OCTs) is not of individual concern to an 
undertaking producing those goods and 
exporting them from the OCTs to the 
Community. 
First, the fact that the applicant is one of 
the major producers of sugar and mixtures 
of sugar and cocoa in the OCTs and that 
there are only two undertakings operating 
in that sector in Aruba is not sufficient to 
distinguish the applicant for the purposes 
of the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC. 
The applicant is in an objectively deter­
mined situation which is comparable to 
that of any other undertaking which might 
now or at some time in the future be 
established in one of the OCTs and active 
on the sugar market. 
Next, as regards the Commission's obli­
gation, when it envisages taking safeguard 
measures on the basis of Article 109(1) of 
Decision 91/482 on the association of the 
overseas countries and territories to 
inquire, in so far as circumstances permit, 
into the negative effects which its decision 
might have on the economy of the OCTs in 
question as well as on the undertakings 
concerned, the applicant has not adduced 
evidence to the effect that the regulation 
had any negative effects on its situation. 
(see paras 38-39, 42, 51, 57) 
II - 114