ORDER OF THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed)
12 June 2025 (*)
( Appeal – Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 (REACH) – European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) – Determination as to whether appeals should be allowed to proceed – Article 170b of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice – Request failing to demonstrate that an issue is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law – Refusal to allow the appeal to proceed )
In Case C‑804/24 P,
APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 20 November 2024,
Polynt SpA, established in Scanzorosciate (Italy), represented initially by C. Mereu, avocat, and I. Zonca, advocaat, and subsequently by C. Mereu, avocat, and M. Grassi, advocaat,
appellant,
the other party to the proceedings being:
European Chemicals Agency (ECHA),
defendant at first instance,
THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed)
composed of T. von Danwitz, Vice-President of the Court, S. Rodin and O. Spineanu‑Matei (Rapporteur), Judges,
Registrar: A. Calot Escobar,
having regard to the proposal from the Judge-Rapporteur and after hearing the Advocate General, R. Norkus,
makes the following
Order
1        By its appeal, Polynt SpA asks the Court of Justice to set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 11 September 2024, Polynt v ECHA (T‑29/22, ‘the judgment under appeal’, EU:T:2024:618), by which the General Court dismissed its action for annulment of the decision of the Board of Appeal of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) of 9 November 2021 on the compliance check of the applicant’s registration dossier for the substance 1,3-dioxo-2-benzofuran-5-carboxylic acid with nonan-1-ol, dismissing its appeal against the follow-up decision of 30 June 2020 on the compliance check, adopted following the compliance check decision of 18 December 2017.
The request that the appeal be allowed to proceed
2        Under the first paragraph of Article 58a of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, an appeal brought against a decision of the General Court concerning a decision of an independent board of appeal of ECHA is not to proceed unless the Court of Justice first decides that it should be allowed to do so.
3        In accordance with the third paragraph of Article 58a of that statute, an appeal is to be allowed to proceed, wholly or in part, in accordance with the detailed rules set out in the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, where it raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law.
4        Under Article 170a(1) of the Rules of Procedure, in the situations referred to in the first paragraph of Article 58a of that statute, the appellant is to annex to the appeal a request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, setting out the issue raised by the appeal that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law and containing all the information necessary to enable the Court to rule on that request.
5        In accordance with Article 170b(1) and (3) of the Rules of Procedure, the Court is to rule on the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, as soon as possible, in the form of a reasoned order.
Arguments of the appellant
6        In support of its request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, the appellant submits that the three grounds of its appeal raise issues that are significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law.
7        By its first ground of appeal, the appellant submits that, in paragraphs 50 to 68 of the judgment under appeal, the General Court made two errors of law. In the first place, the General Court incorrectly held that Article 50(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), establishing a European Chemicals Agency, amending Directive 1999/45/EC and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 793/93 and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1488/94 as well as Council Directive 76/769/EEC and Commission Directives 91/155/EEC, 93/67/EEC, 93/105/EC and 2000/21/EC (OJ 2006 L 396, p. 1, and corrigendum OJ 2007 L 136, p. 3; ‘the REACH Regulation’), imposes a time limit for notification of the cessation of manufacture of a substance and misinterpreted the expression ‘further information’ in the English-language version of Article 50(2). In the second place, the General Court erred in law in finding that the read-across justification does not constitute ‘substantial new information’ requiring the adoption of a new decision In that regard, the appellant submits that the General Court’s interpretation that notification of the cessation of manufacture of a substance can be made only upon receipt of the draft initial compliance decision, and not upon receipt of the draft follow-up decision, is incorrect. According to the appellant, the General Court’s interpretation that the follow-up decision is not a ‘new decision’ but a mere continuation of the same single procedure, the only function of the follow-up decision being to check if a registrant has complied with the initial compliance decision, is also incorrect. The appellant submits that the issue raised by the first ground of appeal is important in that a decision of the Court of Justice on the appeal would make it possible to determine the scope of the right to cease the manufacture of a substance in the context of a new substantial assessment of information provided by the applicants.
8        By its second and third grounds of appeal, taken together, the appellant submits that, as regards the principle of force majeure, the General Court, in paragraphs 124 to 147 of the judgment under appeal, misinterpreted the appellant’s arguments, distorted the evidence on record, resorted to illogical and contradictory reasoning, misapplied and/or misinterpreted the case-law, misapplied the principle of force majeure and failed to state reasons for its decision. In that regard, the appellant submits that the General Court, in essence, failed to understand the reasons supporting its argument that an event of force majeure prevented the generation of the test requested by ECHA. In particular, it claims that the General Court failed to understand that it could not nor can conduct the test on a similar substance and that the documents in the file proved that circumstance. The appellant submits that the issue raised by the second and third grounds of appeal is important in that a decision by the Court of Justice on the appeal would make it possible to determine the relevance of an event of force majeure in the context of the obligations under the REACH Regulation.
Findings of the Court
9        As a preliminary point, it must be recalled that it is for the appellant to demonstrate that the issues raised by its appeal are significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (orders of 10 December 2021, EUIPO v The KaiKai Company Jaeger Wichmann, C‑382/21 P, EU:C:2021:1050, paragraph 20, and of 2 April 2025, Jacob Cohen Company v EUIPO, C‑34/25 P, EU:C:2025:252, paragraph 10).
10      Furthermore, as is apparent from the third paragraph of Article 58a of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, read together with Article 170a(1) and Article 170b(4) of the Rules of Procedure, the request that an appeal be allowed to proceed must contain all the information necessary to enable the Court to give a ruling on whether the appeal should be allowed to proceed and to specify, where the appeal is allowed to proceed in part, the pleas in law or parts of the appeal to which the response must relate. Given that the objective of the mechanism provided for in Article 58a of that statute whereby the Court determines whether an appeal should be allowed to proceed is to restrict review by the Court to issues that are significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law, only grounds of appeal that raise such issues and that are established by the appellant are to be examined by the Court in an appeal (orders of 10 December 2021, EUIPO v The KaiKai Company Jaeger Wichmann, C‑382/21 P, EU:C:2021:1050, paragraph 21, and of 2 April 2025, Jacob Cohen Company v EUIPO, C‑34/25 P, EU:C:2025:252, paragraph 11).
11      Accordingly, a request that an appeal be allowed to proceed must, in any event, set out clearly and in detail the grounds on which the appeal is based, identify with equal clarity and detail the issue of law raised by each ground of appeal, specify whether that issue is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law and set out the specific reasons why that issue is significant according to that criterion. As regards, in particular, the grounds of appeal, the request that an appeal be allowed to proceed must specify the provision of EU law or the case-law that has been infringed by the judgment or order under appeal, explain succinctly the nature of the error of law allegedly committed by the General Court, and indicate to what extent that error had an effect on the outcome of the judgment or order under appeal. Where the error of law relied on results from an infringement of the case-law, the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed must explain, in a succinct but clear and precise manner, first, where the alleged contradiction lies, by identifying the paragraphs of the judgment or order under appeal which the appellant is calling into question as well as those of the ruling of the Court of Justice or the General Court alleged to have been infringed, and, secondly, the concrete reasons why such a contradiction raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (orders of 10 December 2021, EUIPO v The KaiKai Company Jaeger Wichmann, C‑382/21 P, EU:C:2021:1050, paragraph 22, and of 2 April 2025, Jacob Cohen Company v EUIPO, C‑34/25 P, EU:C:2025:252, paragraph 12).
12      A request that an appeal be allowed to proceed which does not contain the information mentioned in the preceding paragraph of the present order cannot, from the outset, be capable of demonstrating that the appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law that justifies the appeal being allowed to proceed (orders of 24 October 2019, Porsche v EUIPO, C‑613/19 P, EU:C:2019:905, paragraph 16, and of 14 March 2025, Eurosemillas v CPVO, C‑774/24 P, EU:C:2025:190, paragraph 15).
13      In the present case, as regards, in the first place, the line of argument summarised in paragraph 7 above, alleging misinterpretation of Article 50(2) of the REACH Regulation and an incorrect finding that the read-across justification does not constitute ‘substantial new information’ requiring the adoption of a new decision, it should be noted that, although the appellant relies on errors of law allegedly committed by the General Court, the fact remains that it merely sets out those errors and submits arguments of a general nature, without setting out the specific reasons why such errors, even if established, raise an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law that would justify the appeal being allowed to proceed. The appellant merely states that the present appeal would enable the Court of Justice to clarify the scope of the right to cease the manufacture of a substance in the context of a new substantial assessment of information provided by the applicants.
14      In the second place, as regards the line of argument summarised in paragraph 8 above, alleging, in essence, misinterpretation of the appellant’s arguments, distortion of the evidence on record, misapplication and/or misinterpretation of the case-law, misapplication of the principle of force majeure and failure to state reasons for the judgment under appeal, it must be stated that the explanations provided by the appellant are not sufficiently clear and precise to enable the Court of Justice to understand the nature of the errors allegedly committed by the General Court.
15      In addition, as regards, more specifically, first, the argument that the General Court failed to take account of the documents in the file that established a case of force majeure, the appellant is in fact seeking to call into question the factual assessments made by the General Court in relation to the evidence presented before it. Such arguments, however, cannot demonstrate that the appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (see, to that effect, order of 17 January 2022, AM.VI. and Quinam v EUIPO, C‑599/21 P, EU:C:2022:32, paragraph 18).
16      Secondly, in so far as the appellant relies on a distortion of evidence which the General Court allegedly committed, it should be noted that such a complaint cannot, in principle, be capable, as such and even if well founded, of raising an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (see, to that effect, order of 17 January 2022, AM.VI. and Quinam v EUIPO, C‑599/21 P, EU:C:2022:32, paragraph 19).
17      Thirdly, as regards the appellant’s argument that the General Court failed to observe the principle of force majeure and disregarded the case-law, it should be noted that, without prejudice to the importance attached to that principle within the EU legal order, that line of argument does not meet the requirements set out in paragraph 11 above. The appellant merely states that the present appeal would make it possible for the Court of Justice to determine the relevance of an event of force majeure in the context of the obligations under the REACH Regulation, without sufficiently explaining or, in any event, demonstrating how the alleged error of law would raise significant issues with respect to the unity, coherence or development of EU law that would justify the appeal being allowed to proceed.
18      Fourthly, in so far as the appellant relies on a failure to state reasons in the judgment under appeal, it must be pointed out that such a line of argument is not capable, in principle, of raising an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (see, to that effect, order of 14 March 2025, Eurosemillas v CPVO, C‑774/24 P, EU:C:2025:190, paragraph 17 and the case-law cited). In addition, it should be noted that the appellant does not explain why the alleged failure to state reasons raises such an issue.
19      In those circumstances, it must be held that the appellant’s request is not capable of establishing that the appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law.
20      In the light of all the foregoing considerations, the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed must be dismissed.
Costs
21      Under Article 137 of the Rules of Procedure, applicable to proceedings on appeal pursuant to Article 184(1) of those rules, a decision as to costs is to be given in the order which closes the proceedings.
22      Since the present order was adopted before the appeal was served on the other party to the proceedings and, therefore, before it could have incurred costs, it is appropriate to decide that the appellant is to bear its own costs.
On those grounds, the Court (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed) hereby orders:
1.      The appeal is not allowed to proceed.
2.      Polynt SpA shall bear its own costs.
Luxembourg, 12 June 2025.
A. Calot Escobar
T. von Danwitz
Registrar
President of the Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed
*      Language of the case: English.