Order — ECLI:EU:C:2007:164
Date: 2007-03-13
Language of the case: English
Court formation: Eighth Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Approximation of laws
Concepts: Appeals;General;Applications by natural or legal persons;Admissibility and examination of applications, forms of order sought and pleas in law
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded;Action for damages
Origin: Belgium;Spain;Netherlands

summary of the pleas in law relied on. Findings of the Court 45 The Court has already ruled that the Court of First Instance is obliged to reject as inadmissible a head of claim in an application brought before it if the essential matters of law and of fact on which the head of claim is based are not indicated coherently and intelligibly in the application itself (Case C‑214/05 P Rossi v OHIM [2006] ECR I‑7057, paragraph 37). 46 Accordingly, the Court of First Instance was fully entitled – after pointing out that, under Article 44(1)(c) of its Rules of Procedure, each application must state the subject-matter of the proceedings and a summary of the pleas in law on which the application is based – to dismiss the claim for compensation submitted to it on the ground that that claim did not satisfy those conditions. Indeed, the application lodged with the Court of First Instance did not indicate, clearly and unequivocally, coherently and fully, the evidence for the alleged damage or the causal link between that damage and the allegedly unlawful conduct. The appellants have not placed any concrete evidence before the Court to show that the application to the Court of First Instance satisfied those conditions. 47 Furthermore, according to the case-law of the Court, where one of the grounds adopted by the Court of First Instance is sufficient to sustain the operative part of its order, any defects that might vitiate other grounds given in the order concerned have, in any event, no bearing on that operative part and, accordingly, a plea relying on such defects is ineffective and must be dismissed (see, to that effect, Case C‑496/99 P Commission v CAS Succhi di Frutta [2004] ECR I‑3801, paragraph 68 and the case-law cited). 48 In the present case, the grounds of the order under appeal concerned by the plea alleging that the Court of First Instance erred in law in its deliberations concerning the time-barred status of the claim for compensation are supernumerary. Accordingly, that plea cannot lead to the annulment of the order under appeal and, in consequence, it is ineffective. 49 The fifth plea in law must therefore be rejected as clearly unfounded. 50 In the light of all the foregoing, the appeal must, pursuant to Article 119 of the Rules of Procedure, be dismissed in its entirety. Costs 51 Under Article 69(2) of the Rules of Procedure, which applies to appeals by virtue of Article 118 thereof, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings. Since the Commission has applied for costs against the appellants and the latter have been unsuccessful in their pleas, they must be ordered to pay the costs. On those grounds, the Court (Eighth Chamber) hereby orders: 1. The appeal is dismissed. 2. Arizona Chemical BV, Eastman Belgium BVBA and Cray Valley Iberica SA shall bear the costs. [Signatures] * Language of the case: English.