ORDER OF THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed)
8 July 2025 (*)
( Appeal – EU trade mark – 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‑16/25 P,
APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 14 January 2025,
Finastra International Ltd, established in London (United Kingdom), represented by S. Malynicz, Barrister-at-Law,
appellant,
the other parties to the proceedings being:
European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO),
defendant at first instance,
Fenestrae BV,
established in The Hague (Netherlands),
intervener at first instance,
THE COURT (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed),
composed of T. von Danwitz, Vice-President of the Court, S. Rodin and N. Piçarra (Rapporteur), Judges,
Registrar: A. Calot Escobar,
having regard to the proposal from the Judge-Rapporteur and after hearing the Advocate General, A. Biondi,
makes the following
Order
1        By its appeal, Finastra International Ltd asks the Court of Justice to set aside the order of the General Court of the European Union of 4 November 2024, Finastra International v EUIPO – Fenestrae (FINASTRA) (T‑346/23, EU:T:2024:798; ‘the order under appeal’), by which the General Court dismissed its action seeking the annulment of the decision of the First Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of 12 April 2023 (Case R 1296/2022-1), concerning opposition proceedings between Fenestrae BV and Finastra International.
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 EUIPO 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        Article 170a(1) of those rules provides that, 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 of Justice to rule on that request.
5        In accordance with Article 170b(1) and (3) of those rules, the Court’s decision on the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed is to be taken 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 that appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law.
7        By the single ground relied on in support of its appeal and based, in essence, on an alleged error of law in the interpretation and application of Article 126 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, the appellant submits that the power conferred on the General Court by that article to give a decision by reasoned order could be exercised only in order to dismiss actions with a procedural or formal defect, such as actions brought out of time. In its view, the very ‘legality’ of that article is at issue.
8        In that context, the appellant claims that the interpretation adopted by the General Court in the order under appeal departs from its earlier case-law and is therefore contrary to that case-law since, in the present case, the General Court applied Article 126 of its Rules of Procedure not in order to penalise a procedural or formal defect, but in order to give a decision on a substantive issue as to the grounds for refusal to register an EU trade mark.
9        According to the appellant, that interpretation is such as to undermine the unity and consistency of EU law, since recourse to that Article 126 could become arbitrary or unforeseeable. This could give rise to inconsistencies in the case-law of the various chambers of the General Court.
10      As regards, moreover, the impact of the contested interpretation on the outcome of the proceedings before the General Court, the appellant submits that that interpretation had the effect of precluding it from challenging the arguments put forward in EUIPO’s reply and of depriving the appellant of a hearing.
11      Lastly, the appellant submits that allowing the appeal to proceed would give the Court of Justice the opportunity to examine, for the first time, the nature and scope of the General Court’s power under Article 126 of its Rules of Procedure and to provide clarification on that article, which could have an impact in various areas of EU law, beyond mere intellectual property cases.
Findings of the Court
12      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 4 October 2024, Puma v EUIPO, C‑503/24 P, EU:C:2024:871, paragraph 14).
13      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 of the Court of Justice, 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 and 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 4 October 2024, Puma v EUIPO, C‑503/24 P, EU:C:2024:871, paragraph 15).
14      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 4 October 2024, Puma v EUIPO, C‑503/24 P, EU:C:2024:871, paragraph 16).
15      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 4 October 2024, Puma v EUIPO, C‑503/24 P, EU:C:2024:871, paragraph 17).
16      In the present case, the order under appeal, which concerns a relative ground for refusal to register an EU trade mark, laid down in Article 8(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2017 on the European Union trade mark (OJ 2017 L 154, p. 1), was adopted on the basis of Article 126 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, entitled ‘Action manifestly bound to fail’. Under that article, ‘where it is clear that the General Court has no jurisdiction to hear and determine an action or where the action is manifestly inadmissible or manifestly lacking any foundation in law, the General Court may, on a proposal from the Judge-Rapporteur, at any time decide to give a decision by reasoned order without taking further steps in the proceedings’. In paragraph 14 of the order under appeal, the General Court considered that it had sufficient information from the material in the file and decided, pursuant to Article 126, to give a decision without taking further steps in the proceedings.
17      In the first place, it must be stated that the appellant, in its arguments set out in paragraphs 7 to 11 of the present order, does not indicate any element relating to the wording, scheme, purpose or origin of Article 126 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court which would be capable of justifying the appellant’s interpretation of that article, to the effect that its scope should be limited to actions involving a procedural or formal defect. First, it is apparent from the wording of that article that the General Court may apply it, inter alia, where an action is manifestly lacking any foundation in law. Secondly, and in any event, the appellant fails to set out specifically the reasons why the issue of law raised in that regard is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law, within the meaning of the case-law referred to in paragraph 14 of the present order.
18      In the second place, although the appellant also appears to challenge the ‘legality’ of Article 126 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, it does not indicate any principle or provision of EU law the infringement of which would enable such illegality to be established. In that regard, the present request that the appeal be allowed to proceed does not meet the requirement of clarity and precision referred to in paragraph 14 of the present order.
19      In the third place, the appellant claims that the interpretation of Article 126 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court adopted in the order under appeal – according to which the scope of that article extends to cases concerning absolute and relative grounds for refusal to register an EU trade mark – departs from the General Court’s earlier interpretation, which limited that scope solely to procedural and formal defects, without, however, indicating the case-law upholding that latter interpretation. Therefore, it fails to have regard to the requirement set out in paragraph 14 of the present order, which stipulates that the General Court identify precisely such case-law.
20      In the fourth place, in so far as the appellant submits that the interpretation of Article 126 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court adopted in the order under appeal precluded it from challenging the arguments put forward in EUIPO’s reply, it should be recalled that the General Court is under no obligation to conduct a hearing or to hear the parties again, where it takes the view that an action is manifestly inadmissible or manifestly lacking any foundation in law, within the meaning of that Article 126 (see, to that effect, judgment of 6 June 2018, Apcoa Parking Holdings v EUIPO, C‑32/17 P, EU:C:2018:396, paragraph 22, and order of 30 January 2024, NO v Commission, C‑522/23 P, EU:C:2024:108, paragraphs 26 and 27 and the case-law cited). In any event, in accordance with the burden of proof which lies with the party requesting that an appeal be allowed to proceed, such an argument is not sufficient, in itself, to establish that the appeal concerned raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law, in the light of all the requirements set out in paragraph 14 of the present order.
21      In the fifth and final place, the fact, even if it were established, that the issue of law concerning the interpretation of Article 126 has never been examined by the Court is not, however, sufficient for such an issue necessarily to be significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. The party requesting that an appeal be allowed to proceed remains bound to demonstrate that significance by providing detailed information not only on the novelty of that issue, but also on the reasons why that issue is significant in relation to those criteria (see, to that effect, orders of 19 February 2024, Balaban v EUIPO, C‑651/23 P, EU:C:2024:140, paragraph 19, and of 8 May 2024, Wyrębski v QC and Others, C‑689/23 P, EU:C:2024:397, paragraph 23 and the case-law cited).
22      However, such a demonstration is not manifestly apparent from the present request that the appeal be allowed to proceed. The appellant merely asserts that a decision of the Court of Justice ruling on the same issue would have an impact on cases in various areas of EU law. In that regard, it must be stated that that is simply an argument of a general nature which, in accordance with the case-law referred to in paragraph 14 of the present order, is not such as to justify the appeal being allowed to proceed, and, moreover, that the fact that an issue might concern multiple cases in various areas of EU law cannot be regarded as necessarily relevant or, in any event, sufficient to establish that the appeal is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law (see, to that effect, order of 17 June 2025, Butzkies-Schiemann v EUIPO, C‑46/25 P, EU:C:2025:453, paragraph 20 and the case-law cited).
23      In those circumstances, it must be held that the request that the appeal be allowed to proceed submitted by the appellant is not such as to establish that the appeal raises an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law.
24      In the light of the reasons set out above, the appeal should not be allowed to proceed.
Costs
25      Under Article 137 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, 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.
26      Since the present order was adopted before the appeal was served on the other parties to the proceedings and, therefore, before they 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.      Finastra International Ltd shall bear its own costs.
Luxembourg, 8 July 2025.
A. Calot Escobar
T. von Danwitz
Registrar
President of the Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed
*      Language of the case: English.