Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2001:222
Date: 2001-09-19
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Development cooperation;External relations
Concepts: Food aid
Procedure: Arbitration clause - successful
Origin: France

Summary of the Judgment 
Agriculture — Common agricultural policy — Food aid — Implementation — Deliv­
ery of products — Legal effect — Transfer of the burden of risk from supplier to 
beneficiary — Means of proof — Final certificate of conformity — Other means of 
proof — Whether permissible — Nature of reservation — Not relevant 
(Commission Regulation No 2519/97, Arts IS and 16(4)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-26/00 
Article 15 of Regulation No 2519/97 lay­
ing down general rules for the mobilisation 
of products to be supplied under Regula­
tion No 1292/96 as Community food aid 
cannot be interpreted as meaning that the 
legal effect of delivery, namely the transfer 
of the burden of risk from supplier to 
beneficiary, is necessarily dependent on the 
time at which the final certificate of 
conformity — the sole means of proving 
delivery expressly provided for in the 
Regulation — is drawn up. Such an inter­
pretation would risk jeopardising the per­
formance in good faith of the contractual 
obligations in question, by making the time 
at which the burden of risk is transferred 
dependent on the good will of the monitor 
appointed by the Commission and by 
making the supplier continue to bear the 
risks to which the goods may be subject 
even when it no longer has control over 
them. 
In those circumstances, although the agree­
ment protocol concluded between the 
Commission and the beneficiary before 
the taking-over certificate is issued by the 
beneficiary cannot on its own fix the 
moment at which the burden of risk was 
transferred from the supplier to the bene­
ficiary, the factual information formally 
stated and approved by the Commission in 
that document may nevertheless serve to 
establish the relevant facts in respect of the 
relations between the supplier and the 
institution. 
On the other hand, the interpretation to be 
placed on Article 16(4) of the Regulation 
concerning notices of reservation is not 
such as to influence the determination of 
the time at which the burden of risk passed 
from the supplier to the beneficiary. That 
provision is concerned solely with the 
matter of the non-conformity of the goods 
with the applicable contractual conditions. 
(see paras 63-65, 71) 
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