Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2002:449
Date: 2002-07-11
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Food aid;External relations
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded;Appeal - inadmissible
Origin: France;Provisional data;Bermuda

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Appeals — Pleas in law — Plea put forward for the first time in the appeal — 
Inadmissible 
(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51) 
I-10119 
SUMMARY — JOINED CASES C-24/01 P AND C-25/01 P 
2. Appeals — Pleas in law — Review by the Court of the assessment of the evidence — 
Excluded, except where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted 
(Art. 225 EC; EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51, first para.) 
3. Appeals — Pleas in law — Review by the Court of the assessment ofinformation — 
Excluded, except where the clear sense of the information has been distorted 
(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 66(1)) 
1. A plea in law put forward for the first 
time in an appeal before the Court of 
Justice must be rejected as inadmiss­
ible. To allow a party to put forward 
for the first time before the Court of 
Justice a plea in law which it has not 
raised before the Court of First 
Instance would be to allow it to bring 
before the Court of Justice, whose 
jurisdiction in appeals is limited, a case 
of wider ambit than that which came 
before the Court of First Instance. In an 
appeal, the jurisdiction of the Court of 
Justice is confined to review of the 
findings of law on the pleas argued 
before the Court of First Instance. 
(see paras 62-63) 
2. Under Article 225 EC and the first 
paragraph of Article 51 of the Statute 
of the Court of Justice the latter has no 
jurisdiction, in an appeal, to establish 
the facts or, in principle, to examine 
the evidence which the Court of First 
Instance accepted in support of those 
facts. Provided that the evidence has 
been properly obtained and the general 
principles of law and the rules of 
procedure in relation to the burden of 
proof and the taking of evidence have 
been observed, it is for the Court of 
First Instance alone to assess the value 
which should be attached to the evi­
dence produced to it. That appraisal 
does not therefore constitute, save 
where the clear sense of the evidence 
has been distorted, a point of law 
which is subject as such to review by 
the Court of Justice. 
(see para. 65) 
3. The Court of First Instance cannot be 
required to call witnesses of its own 
motion, since Article 66(1) of its Rules 
of Procedure makes clear that it is to 
prescribe such measures of inquiry as it 
considers appropriate by means of an 
order setting out the facts to be proved. 
The Court of First Instance is thus the 
sole judge of whether it is necessary to 
supplement the information available 
to it concerning the cases before it. 
I - 10120 
GLENCORE AND COMPAGNIE CONTINENTALE v COMMISSION 
Whether or not the evidence before it is 
convincing is a matter to be appraised 
by it alone and is not subject to review 
by the Court of Justice on appeal 
except where the clear sense of the 
evidence submitted has been distorted 
or the substantive inaccuracy of the 
Court of First Instance's findings is 
apparent from the documents in the 
case-file. 
(see paras 77-78) 
I-10121