Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1997:364
Date: 1997-07-15
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Competition;Agreements, decisions and concerted practices;Concerted practices
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded;Appeal - inadmissible;Application for revision of a judgment
Origin: Netherlands

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Appeals — Appeal against an order dismissing an application for revision — 
Interpretation of the phrase 'fact which is of such a nature as to be a decisive factor' 
in Article 41 of the Statute of the Court of Justice — Point of law — Admissible 
(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 41, first para., and 49, first para.) 
2. Actions for annulment — Jurisdiction of the Community judicature — Unlimited 
jurisdiction — Issue of directions to an institution — Not permissible 
(EC Treaty, Arts 172 (now Art. 229 EC) and 173 (now, after amendment, Art. 230 
EC); Council Regulation No 17, Art. 17) 
3. Procedure — Revision of a judgment — Conditions governing the admissibility of the 
application — Fact relied on must pre-date delivery of the judgment under appeal — 
Fact relied on must have been unknown to the party seeking revision 
(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 41) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-5/93 P 
1. An appeal may be lodged against 
decisions in which the Court of First 
Instance dismissed applications for 
revision as inadmissible. It would be 
manifestly contrary to the first para­
graph of Article 49 of the EC Statute of 
the Court of Justice, pursuant to which 
an appeal may be brought before the 
Court of Justice against final decisions 
of the Court of First Instance, for that 
not to be the case. 
The interpretation of the phrase 'fact 
which is of such nature as to be a 
decisive factor, and which, when the 
judgment was given was unknown to 
the Court and to the party claiming the 
revision' in the first paragraph of 
Article 41 of the EC Statute of the 
Court of Justice is a point of law, which 
may be examined in appeal proceed­
ings. 
2. When exercising judicial review of 
legality under Article 173 of the Treaty 
(now, after amendment, Article 230 
EC), the Community judicature has 
no jurisdiction to issue directions. The 
same applies when, pursuant to Arti­
cle 17 of Regulation No 17, the Com­
munity judicature has unlimited juris­
diction in accordance with Article 172 
of the Treaty (now Article 229 EC). 
3. It is clear from the actual wording of 
Article 41 of the Statute of the Court of 
Justice that, in order for an application 
for revision to be admissible, the fact 
relied on must have been unknown to 
the party claiming revision when the 
judgment was given. The Court of First 
Instance was therefore perfectly correct 
in holding that since that condition was 
not satisfied there was no need to 
ascertain whether the facts relied on 
were new. 
Moreover, under the second paragraph 
of Article 41, it is only if the Court 
finds that a new fact exists, recognises 
that it is of such a character as to lay 
the case open for revision and declares 
the application admissible on that 
ground that it can examine the sub­
stance of the case. It follows that, if and 
as long as no new fact has been found, 
the revision procedure cannot be used 
to prompt the court hearing the appli­
cation to order new measures of 
inquiry. Accordingly, the Court of First 
Instance properly applied Article 41 of 
the Statute of the Court of Justice when 
it refused to order measures of inquiry 
for discovering facts the existence of 
which had not been established by an 
applicant in its application for revision, 
and that it rightly confined its exam­
ination to the facts that the applicant 
had set out in that application. 
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