ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
12

The background to the dispute has been set out as follows by the General Court in paragraphs 8 to 13 of the order under appeal: ‘8 [Planet] is a Greek company which provides advisory services in the field of the administration of companies. Since 2006, it has been engaged, in its capacity as a member of three consortiums, in three projects in Syria financed by the Commission. Since 16 October 2007, it has been the subject of an enquiry carried out by OLAF into suspected irregularities within the framework of these three projects. 9 Following a tendering procedure launched within the framework of the seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, [Planet] was invited by the Commission, by a letter dated 18 April 2008, to enter into negotiations with the aim of determining the definitive terms of a contract for a grant regarding its offer to assume the role of co-ordinator of a consortium concerning the project “Advancing knowledge – intensive entrepreneurship and innovation for growth and social well-being in Europe” (the “AEGIS project”). The Commission’s letter mentioned that any possible grant from the Community could not exceed an amount of EUR 3 300 000 and that negotiations had to be concluded before 30 June 2008 10 The findings emerging in the enquiry mentioned in point 8 above led OLAF to request [Planet’s] registration in the EWS on two occasions. On 26 February 2009, it requested the activation of a W1a warning and, on 19 May 2009, it requested the activation of a W1b warning. The registrations were made on 10 March and 25 May 2009. 11 On 27 February 2009, the Commission sent [Planet] the negotiated contract for a grant (the “contract”) so that [it] and the other members of the consortium to which it belongs could sign it. On 11 March 2009, [Planet] returned the signed contract to the Commission so that the latter, in turn, could sign it. 12 On 4 June 2009, the Commission informed [Planet] by email [“the email of 4 June 2009”] that the process of signing the contract had been suspended until a further condition had been satisfied, namely the opening by [Planet] of a blocked bank account, through which [it] would have access only to the part of the advance payment which it was due under the contract, whereas the rest of the advance payment would be transferred directly by the bank to the other members of the consortium. The email mentioned that this new condition was required because of an unexpected event, namely the registration of [Planet] in the EWS by the activation, first, of a W1a warning, and then of a W1b warning. 13 After [Planet] had agreed with its bank that the bank undertook to transfer, following the receipt of the advance to be paid by the Commission, to each member of the consortium the amount which it was due, the Commission signed the contract on 3 July 2009.’
31

In those circumstances, the Juzgado de lo Mercantil No 3 de Barcelona, entertaining doubts as to the correct interpretation of European Union law, decided to stay the proceedings and to refer to the Court of Justice the following questions for a preliminary ruling: ‘(1) Whether the system of levying execution, in reliance on judicial documents, on mortgaged or pledged property provided for in Article 695 et seq. of the Spanish Code of Civil Procedure, with its limitations regarding the grounds of objection, may be nothing more than a clear limitation of consumer protection since it involves, both formally and substantively, a clear impediment to the consumer’s exercise of rights of action or judicial remedies of such a kind as to guarantee the effective protection of his rights? (2) How is the concept of disproportion to be understood with regard to: (a) the use of acceleration clauses in contracts planned to last for a considerable time – in this case 33 years – for events of default occurring within a very limited specific period; (b) the setting of default interest rates – in this case exceeding 18% – which are not consistent with the criteria for determining default interest in other consumer contracts (consumer credit), which, in other types of consumer contracts, might be regarded as unfair, and which, nevertheless, in contracts relating to immovable property, are not subject to any clear legal limit, even where they are applied not only to the instalments that have already fallen due but also to the totality of those that have become due as a result of acceleration; (c) the unilateral establishment by the lender of mechanisms for the calculation and determination of variable interest – both ordinary and default interest – which are linked to the possibility of mortgage enforcement and do not allow a debtor who is subject to enforcement to object to the quantification of the debt in the enforcement proceedings themselves but require him to resort to declaratory proceedings in which a final decision will not be given before enforcement has been completed or, at least, the debtor will have lost the property mortgaged or charged by way of guarantee – a matter of great importance when the loan is sought for the purchase of a dwelling and enforcement gives rise to eviction from the property?’
4

Article 3(1) to (3) of Directive 2001/23 provide: ‘1. The transferor’s rights and obligations arising from a contract of employment or from an employment relationship existing on the date of a transfer shall, by reason of such transfer, be transferred to the transferee. Member States may provide that, after the date of transfer, the transferor and the transferee shall be jointly and severally liable in respect of obligations which arose before the date of transfer from a contract of employment or an employment relationship existing on the date of the transfer. 2. Member States may adopt appropriate measures to ensure that the transferor notifies the transferee of all the rights and obligations which will be transferred to the transferee under this Article, so far as those rights and obligations are or ought to have been known to the transferor at the time of the transfer. A failure by the transferor to notify the transferee of any such right or obligation shall not affect the transfer of that right or obligation and the rights of any employees against the transferee and/or transferor in respect of that right or obligation. 3. Following the transfer, the transferee shall continue to observe the terms and conditions agreed in any collective agreement on the same terms applicable to the transferor under that agreement, until the date of termination or expiry of the collective agreement or the entry into force or application of another collective agreement. Member States may limit the period for observing such terms and conditions with the proviso that it shall not be less than one year.’
31

As regards the determination of the actual circumstances in which the insurance obligation laid down in Article 3(1) of the First Directive may be regarded as not having been satisfied, it is significant – as the Advocate General stated in point 32 of his Opinion – that the European Union legislature did not confine itself to providing that the body must pay compensation in the event of damage caused by a vehicle for which the insurance obligation has not been satisfied in general, but made it clear that that was to be the case only in relation to damage caused by a vehicle for which the insurance obligation provided for in Article 3(1) of the First Directive has not been satisfied, that is to say, a vehicle in respect of which no insurance policy exists. Such a restriction is explained by the fact that Article 3(1) of the First Directive – as has been pointed out in paragraph 28 above – requires each Member State, subject to the derogations allowed under Article 4 of that directive, to ensure that every owner or keeper of a vehicle normally based in its territory takes out a policy with an insurance company for the purpose of covering, up to the limits established by European Union law, his civil liability arising as a result of that vehicle. Viewed in that light, the very fact that damage has been caused by an uninsured vehicle attests to a breakdown in the system which the Member State was required to establish and justifies the payment of compensation by a national body providing compensation.
35

By contrast, the Cour de cassation questions whether the cour d’appel de Bruxelles could, without erring in law, have deprived Martin Y Paz of the possibility of invoking its marks against Gauquie and of the possibility of itself using its marks in respect of handbags and shoes. It therefore decided, in that judgment of 2 December 2011, to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling: ‘(1) (a) Must Article 5(1) and Article 8(1) of [Directive 89/104] be interpreted as meaning that the exclusive right conferred by the registered mark can definitively no longer be asserted by its proprietor against a third party, in respect of all goods covered by it at the time of registration: — where, for an extended period, the proprietor has shared the use of that mark with that third party in a form of co-ownership for part of the goods covered; — where, when that sharing was agreed, the proprietor gave the third party its irrevocable consent to use of that mark by the third party in respect of those goods? (b) Must those articles be interpreted as meaning that application of a national rule, such as that according to which the proprietor of a right cannot exercise that right in a wrongful or abusive manner, can lead to a definitive prohibition on the exercise of that exclusive right for part of the goods covered or as meaning that that application must be restricted to penalising the wrongful or abusive exercise of that right in another way? (2) (a) Must Article 5(1) and Article 8(1) of [Directive 89/104] be interpreted as meaning that, where the proprietor of a registered mark ends its undertaking to a third party not to use that mark for certain goods and thus intends to recommence that use itself, the national court can none the less definitively prohibit it from recommencing that use of the mark on the ground that it amounts to unfair competition because of the resulting advantage to the proprietor of the publicity previously made for the mark by the third party and possible confusion in customers’ minds, or must they be interpreted as meaning that the national court must adopt a different penalty which does not definitively prohibit the proprietor from recommencing use of the mark? (b) Must those articles be interpreted as meaning that a definitive prohibition on use by the proprietor is justified where the third party has, over a number of years, made investments in order to bring to the attention of the public the goods in respect of which the proprietor has authorised it to use the mark?’
50

Lastly, according to the Council, the impasse over the legislative dossier was also attributable, at least in part, to the fact that, precisely because of the unauthorised disclosure, Member States found it very difficult to move out of their initial negotiation positions. In particular, the delegations from those States which wanted to propose amendments that could be perceived by the public as restricting the right of public access were unwilling to do so. The Council claims that the General Court was wrong not to acknowledge the adverse effects on the Council’s decision-making process produced by the unauthorised disclosure. First, the General Court erred in finding, in paragraph 72 of the judgment under appeal, that such an argument was unfounded because one of the proposals in question, made after the unauthorised disclosure, restricted the right of public access, whereas, contrary to the statements made by the General Court, that proposal had not been tabled by a delegation from a Member State, but originated with the Commission itself. Secondly, in paragraphs 82 and 83 of the judgment under appeal, the General Court was wrong to reject evidence provided by the Council to explain the decline in the level of detail in the reports for the legislative file, and in relation to the identification of the delegations in the working parties by name. Whereas the General Court found an explanation for this in the fact that proceedings had been brought before it, the Council maintains that, given the sensitive nature of the issues in question, that change was attributable precisely to the unauthorised disclosure. The Council illustrates the reduction in the level of detail with a reference to a report established in July 2009 from the working party in question, in which the identity of the delegations was no longer mentioned but, instead, use was made of expressions like ‘a certain number of delegations’ and ‘other delegations’.
Case C-182/12

Gábor Fekete

v

Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal Közép-dunántúli Regionális Vám- és Pénzügyőri Főigazgatósága

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Székesfehérvári Törvényszék)

‛Community Customs Code — Article 137 — Regulation implementing the Customs Code — Article 561(2) — Conditions for total relief from import duties — Importation into a Member State of a vehicle whose owner is established in a third country — Private use of the vehicle authorised by the owner otherwise than by an employment contract concluded with the user — No relief’

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Eighth Chamber), 7 March 2013

Customs union — Common Customs Tariff — System of temporary importation with relief from duties — Vehicle for private use whose owner is established in a third country — Private use of the vehicle — Authorisation by the owner otherwise than by an employment contract concluded with the user — No relief

(Commission Regulation No 2454/93, Art. 561(2)

Article 561(2) of Regulation No 2454/93 of 2 July 1993 laying down provisions for the implementation of Regulation No 2913/92 establishing the Community Customs Code, as amended by Regulation No 993/2001, must be interpreted as meaning that the total relief from import duties provided for by that provision for a means of transport used privately by a person established in the customs territory of the Union may be granted only if such use is provided for in a contract of employment between that person and the owner of the vehicle established outside that territory.

(see para. 26, operative part)

Case C-182/12

Gábor Fekete

v

Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal Közép-dunántúli Regionális Vám- és Pénzügyőri Főigazgatósága

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Székesfehérvári Törvényszék)

‛Community Customs Code — Article 137 — Regulation implementing the Customs Code — Article 561(2) — Conditions for total relief from import duties — Importation into a Member State of a vehicle whose owner is established in a third country — Private use of the vehicle authorised by the owner otherwise than by an employment contract concluded with the user — No relief’

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Eighth Chamber), 7 March 2013

Customs union — Common Customs Tariff — System of temporary importation with relief from duties — Vehicle for private use whose owner is established in a third country — Private use of the vehicle — Authorisation by the owner otherwise than by an employment contract concluded with the user — No relief

(Commission Regulation No 2454/93, Art. 561(2)

Article 561(2) of Regulation No 2454/93 of 2 July 1993 laying down provisions for the implementation of Regulation No 2913/92 establishing the Community Customs Code, as amended by Regulation No 993/2001, must be interpreted as meaning that the total relief from import duties provided for by that provision for a means of transport used privately by a person established in the customs territory of the Union may be granted only if such use is provided for in a contract of employment between that person and the owner of the vehicle established outside that territory.

(see para. 26, operative part)
Article 3(9) of Directive 2005/29 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450, Directives 97/7, 98/27 and 2002/65 and Regulation No 2006/2004 must be interpreted as not precluding a national provision whose objective is to protect the interests of consumers which lays down a general prohibition — save in the cases exhaustively listed by the national legislation — of combined offers made to consumers where at least one of the components of those offers is a financial service.

Recital 9 in the preamble to Directive 2005/29 makes express reference to the intention of allowing Member States the right to adopt more stringent measures in relation to financial services in order to ensure a high level of consumer protection. The intention of the EU legislature is therefore to leave it to the Member States themselves to assess how restrictive they wish to make those measures and to allow them freedom of action in that connection, enabling them to go so far as to prohibit those offers.

(see paras 27, 28, 38, operative part)
Article 24(1) of Regulation No 1346/2000 on insolvency proceedings must be interpreted as meaning that a payment made at the behest of a debtor subject insolvency proceedings to one of its creditors does not fall within the scope of that provision.

The persons protected by that provision are the debtors of the insolvency debtor who, whether it be directly or indirectly, honour an obligation for the benefit of the latter in good faith.

Thus, a bank which made a payment, at the behest of and on behalf of the insolvent debtor, even if it fulfilled an obligation contracted with regard to the instalment debtor, has not fulfilled that obligation ‘for the benefit of’ the latter within the meaning of Article 24 of Regulation No 1346/2000 since the debtor was not the recipient of that payment.

(see paras 31, 32, 38, operative part)
Article 5(3) of Regulation No 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters must be interpreted as meaning that, in the event of an alleged infringement of copyrights protected by the Member State of the court seised, the latter has jurisdiction to hear an action to establish liability brought by the author of a work against a company established in another Member State and which has, in the latter State, reproduced that work on a material support which is subsequently sold by companies established in a third Member State through an internet site which is also accessible within the jurisdiction of the court seised. That court has jurisdiction only to determine the damage caused in the Member State within which it is situated.

Subject to the principle of territoriality, copyrights must, however, be protected automatically — in particular by virtue of Directive 2001/29 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society — in all Member States, to the extent they may be infringed in each of those States in accordance with the applicable substantive law.

As regards the alleged infringement of a copyright, jurisdiction to hear an action in tort, delict or quasi-delict is already established in favour of the court seised where the Member State in which that court is situated protects the copyrights relied on by the plaintiff and the harmful event alleged may occur within the jurisdiction of the court seised. That likelihood arises, in particular, from the possibility of obtaining a reproduction of the work to which the rights relied on by the defendant pertain from an internet site which is accessible within the jurisdiction of the court seised.

(see paras 39, 43, 44, 47, operative part)
Articles 20 TFEU and 21 TFEU must be interpreted as precluding legislation of a Member State, which, as a rule, makes the award of an education or training grant for studies pursued in another Member State subject to the sole condition of having established a permanent residence, within the meaning of that legislation, on national territory for three years at least before the start of those studies and which, in a case where the applicant is a national of that State with no permanent residence within that State for the requisite period, provides for a grant for education or training abroad only in the applicant’s State of residence or in a neighbouring State thereof and only where specific circumstances justify such a grant.

That legislation constitutes a restriction on the right to freedom of movement and residence enjoyed by all citizens of the Union pursuant to Article 21 TFEU, in that it is likely to dissuade European Union nationals from exercising their right to freedom of movement and residence in another Member State, given the impact that exercising that freedom is likely to have on the right to the education or training grant.

The restriction flowing from the legislation at issue in the main proceedings can be justified in the light of EU law only if it is based on objective considerations of public interest independent of the nationality of the persons concerned and if it is proportionate to the legitimate objective pursued by the provisions of national law.

In that regard, the condition of permanent residence, despite the limited derogations thereto, is at the same time too general and too exclusive in nature. That restriction on the right to freedom of movement and of residence may therefore not be considered to be proportionate to the financial objective pursued.

(see paras 27-29, 46, 51, operative part)