Order of the Court of 8 July 1999. - Edouard Dubois & fils SA v Council of the European Union and Commission of the European Communities. - Appeal - Non-contractual liability - Single European Act - Customs agent. - Case C-95/98 P.



European Court reports 1999 Page I-04835



Summary



Keywords

1 Non-contractual liability - Scope - Acts of the Community institutions or acts of servants of the Community - Meaning - Whether instruments of primary Community law are covered - Not covered - Position where damage is attributable to the Single European Act

(EC Treaty, Arts 7a (now, after amendment, Art. 14 EC), 178 (now Art. 235 EC) and 215, second para. (now Art. 288, second para., EC))

2 Appeals - Pleas in law - Plea raised for the first time in appeal proceedings - Inadmissible

(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51)

3 Appeals - Pleas in law - Plea alleging incorrect appraisal of the facts - Inadmissible - Whether the Court of Justice may review the appraisal of the evidence - Possible only where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted

(EC Treaty, Art. 168a (now Art. 225 EC); EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51)

Summary

1 As regards non-contractual liability on the part of the Community, damage suffered by customs agents on account of the abolition of customs and tax frontiers cannot be imputed to the Council or the Commission, since the cause lies, rather, in the entry into force of the Single European Act. Article 13 of the Single European Act, which inserted into the Treaty an Article 8a, which became Article 7a of the EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 14 EC), and which provides that `[t]he internal market shall comprise an area without internal frontiers', is the direct and determining cause of such damage. The Single European Act, however, is an instrument of primary Community law which is thus neither an act of the Community institutions nor an act of the servants of the Community in the performance of their duties within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 215 of the Treaty (now Article 288, second paragraph, EC). It cannot, therefore, give rise to non-contractual liability on the part of the Community.

2 A plea in law which is first raised during appeal proceedings before the Court of Justice must be dismissed as inadmissible. To allow a party to put forward for the first time before the Court of Justice a plea in law which it has not raised before the Court of First Instance would be to allow it to bring before the Court of Justice, whose jurisdiction in appeals is limited, a case of wider ambit than that which came before the Court of First Instance. In an appeal the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice is thus confined to review of the findings of law on the pleas argued at first instance.

3 The Court of First Instance has exclusive jurisdiction to find the facts, save where a substantive inaccuracy in its findings is attributable to the documents submitted to it, and to appraise those facts. Consequently, the appraisal by the Court of First Instance of the evidence put before it does not constitute (unless the clear sense of that evidence has been distorted) a point of law which is subject, as such, to review by the Court of Justice.