ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
Request for a preliminary ruling from the Curtea de Apel Constanța (Romania) lodged on 12 April 2019 — Ira Invest SRL v Agenția de Plăți și Intervenție pentru Agricultură — Centrul Județean Tulcea

(Case C-304/19)

(2019/C 288/19)

Language of the case: Romanian

Referring court

Curtea de Apel Constanța

Parties to the main proceedings

Appellant/applicant at first instance: Ira Invest SRL

Respondent/defendant at first instance: Agenția de Plăți și Intervenție pentru Agricultură — Centrul Județean Tulcea

Question referred

Must Article 4(1)(b), (c), (e) and (f), Article 10, Article 21(1) and Article 32(1) to (5) of Regulation (EU) No 1307/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 (1) be interpreted as precluding national legislation which, in the circumstances of the main proceedings, excludes a farmer from payment of entitlements on the ground that land with aquaculture facilities used as arable land does not constitute an ‘agricultural area’ within the meaning of Article 4 of the regulation?

(1) Regulation (EU) No 1307/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 establishing rules for direct payments to farmers under support schemes within the framework of the common agricultural policy and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 637/2008 and Council Regulation (EC) No 73/2009 (OJ 2013 L 347, p. 608).
1.

Is primary and/or secondary European law, in particular Directive 2004/38/EC (1) of the European Parliament and of the Council, in the sense of a full right of EU citizens to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, to be interpreted as meaning that it also covers national criminal provisions?
2.

Does the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), established by Commission Decision 2006/928/EC of 13 December 2006, constitute an integral part of the Treaty concerning the accession of the Republic of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union, signed by Romania in Luxembourg on 25 April 2005, and must it be interpreted and applied in the light of the provisions of that treaty? Are the requirements set out in the reports drawn up in the context of that mechanism binding on Romania and, if so, is a national court which is responsible for applying, within its sphere of jurisdiction, provisions of EU law required to ensure the application of those rules, where necessary refusing, of its own motion, to apply provisions of national legislation that are contrary to the requirements set out in the reports drawn up pursuant to that mechanism?
2.

Does the principle of the primacy of EU law permit an exception to be made, in subsequent proceedings, to the authority of res judicata attaching to a final judicial decision in which it has been established, in essence, that, in accordance with national value added tax legislation, as it is interpreted and applied, lawyers do not supply goods, do not carry out an economic activity and do not conclude contracts for the supply of services, but instead conclude contracts for legal assistance?
Appeal brought on 11 June 2019 by SA Close, Cegelec against the judgment of the General Court (Fourth Chamber) delivered on 9 April 2019 in Case T-259/15, Close and Cegelec v Parliament

(Case C-447/19 P)

(2019/C 312/07)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Appellants: SA Close, Cegelec (represented by: J.-L. Teheux, J.-M. Rikkers, lawyers)

Other party to the proceedings: European Parliament

Form of order sought

The appellants claim that the Court should:

— set aside the judgment under appeal;

— consequently, grant the form of order sought by the appellants at first instance and, accordingly, annul the decision taken on 19 March 2015 by the Parliament awarding the public works contract in respect of the ‘Project to extend and modernise the Konrad Adenauer Building in Luxembourg’ lot 73 (energy unit), under reference INLO-D-UPIL-T-14-A04, to the consortium ENERGIE-KAD (formed of the companies MERSCH et SCHMITZ PRODUCTION SARL and ENERGOLUX SA) and, in turn, not selecting the appellants’ tender;

— order the Parliament to pay the costs.

Grounds of appeal and main arguments

The appellants claim that the General Court failed to fulfil the obligation to state reasons for the purposes of Article 296 TFEU, Article 113(2) of the financial regulation and Article 161(2) and (3) of the rules of application of the financial regulation.

The General Court also distorted the scope of the second plea in law raised at first instance, attributed incorrect scope to the concept of manifest error of assessment, the principle of sound administration and the obligations stemming from that principle, and made an error of assessment that led to distortion of the facts and evidence.

Lastly, the appellants submit that the judgment under appeal lacks an adequate statement of reasons, in so far as it in no way addresses certain arguments put forward by them.
Appeal brought on 5 May 2019 by Meblo Trade d.o.o. against the judgment of the General Court (Third Chamber) delivered on 5 March 2019 in Case T-263/18: Meblo Trade v EUIPO — Meblo Int

(Case C-359/19 P)

(2019/C 295/07)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Appellant: Meblo Trade d.o.o. (represented by: A. Ivanova, адвокат)

Other parties to the proceedings: European Union Intellectual Property Office, Meblo Int, proizvodnja izdelkov za spanje d.o.o.

By order of 10 July 2019 the Court of Justice (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed) held that the appeal shall not be allowed to proceed and that Meblo Trade d.o.o. shall bear its own costs.
4.

In any event, in the case of offices in which activities connected to the universal service and activities unrelated to it are both performed, must the concept of ‘a functional link’, in connection with a service which is specifically in the public interest, be interpreted in a non-restrictive manner (as has been held to date in the national case-law, in accordance with judgment No 16 of 2011 of the Council of State, sitting in plenary session), at odds, in that regard, with the principles set out in recital 16 and Articles 6 and 13 of Directive 2014/25/EU, which refer to the concept of the ‘intended purpose’ of one of the activities governed by the Public Procurement Code for the purpose of identifying the applicable rules? It must therefore be clarified whether all the operational activities in a relevant special sector can be ‘intended’ for that sector — including under the less stringent binding conditions specific to excluded sectors, in accordance with the intentions of the contracting authority (including contracts relating to ordinary and extraordinary maintenance, cleaning, furnishing, caretaking and storage services for such offices, or other forms of use of the latter if intended as a service for customers) while only the ‘unrelated’ activities remain effectively privatised, activities which the public or private entity can carry out freely in entirely different areas, exclusively under the rules of the Civil Code and the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts. (It is true that, for present purposes, the banking services carried out by Poste Italiane are an example of this type but the same cannot be said for the supply and use of electronic communication tools, where they are used to cover the scope of activities of the Group, even though they are particularly necessary for the banking activity.) However, it seems necessary to point out the ‘imbalance’ prompted by the current restrictive interpretation, which introduces completely different rules to the management of comparable or adjacent sectors, for the award of works or service contracts: on one hand, the detailed safeguards imposed by the Public Procurement Code for the purpose of identifying the other party to the contract, and on the other hand the complete freedom to negotiate on the part of the contractor, which is free to make agreements solely in accordance with its own economic interests, without any of the transparency guarantees required for the special and excluded sectors.
3.

Is this court’s interpretation, as set out in this order, of Clause 5 of the Framework Agreement and points 6 and 8 of the [general considerations contained in that agreement], and of the parameters established by the judgment of the Court of Justice (Tenth Chamber) of 14 September 2016, Pérez López, C-16/15, EU:C:2016:679, correct in concluding that Order 406/2017 of 8 May 2017 of the Minister for Health does not comply with the first paragraph of Article 2 of Directive 1999/70, inasmuch as the Spanish State is not ensuring that the outcomes established in the directive are achieved because, following the abuse arising from the use of fixed-term contracts, it fails to offer workers effective and equivalent guarantees of protection so as to punish that abuse appropriately and remove the effects of the breach of EU law, and it allows the abuse to go unpunished, thus permitting a situation in which … Directive [1999/70] is not applied in the health sector?
Request for a preliminary ruling from the Corte suprema di cassazione (Italy) lodged on 28 May 2019 — Commerciale Gicap SpA v Agenzia delle Entrate

(Case C-417/19)

(2019/C 328/05)

Language of the case: Italian

Referring court

Corte suprema di cassazione

Parties to the main proceedings

Appellant: Commerciale Gicap SpA

Respondent: Agenzia delle Entrate

Question referred

Are Article 1(1223) of Law No 296 of 27 December 2006 (now Article 16a(11) of Law No 11 of 4 February 2005) and the Decree of the President of the Council of Ministers of 23 May 2007 compatible with EU law, with reference to Article 108(3) TFEU as interpreted in Deggendorf, Commission Decision C(2008) 380, and the Community-law principle of proportionality?
Request for a preliminary ruling from the Finanzgericht Baden-Württemberg (Germany) lodged on 13 June 2019 — WEG Tevesstraße v Finanzamt Villingen-Schwenningen

(Case C-449/19)

(2019/C 348/02)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Finanzgericht Baden-Württemberg

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: WEG Tevesstraße

Defendant: Finanzamt Villingen-Schwenningen

Question referred

Are the provisions of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (1) to be interpreted as precluding legislation of a Member State under which the supply of heat by associations of residential property owners to those owners is exempt from value added tax?

(1) OJ 2006 L 347, p. 1.
Request for a preliminary ruling from the Finanzgericht München (Germany) lodged on 4 July 2019 — BMW Bayerische Motorenwerke AG v Hauptzollamt München

(Case C-509/19)

(2019/C 328/23)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Finanzgericht München

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: BMW Bayerische Motorenwerke AG

Defendant: Hauptzollamt München

Question referred

Should the development costs for software that has been produced in the European Union, made available to the seller by the buyer free of charge and installed on the imported control unit be added to the transaction value for the imported product pursuant to Article 71(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 October 2013 laying down the Union Customs Code (1) if they are not included in the price actually paid or payable for the imported product?

(1) OJ 2013 L 269, p. 1.
4.

Can the function of protecting ‘cultural objects’, including ‘vintage vehicles’ envisaged by Article 36 TFEU and evoked in Article 2(1) of Directive 2014/60/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 and the tenth recital of Directive 2000/53/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 September 2000 on end-of life vehicles, in the light of the content of Point 26 of the Road Safety Programme of the European Commission, approved on 29 September 2005, be interpreted as permitting the Member States to grant a tax exemption which is discriminatory inasmuch as it is limited only to vehicles ‘of particular interest to historians and collectors’, even where there is a more extensive tax exemption which is granted in respect of all vehicles ‘of interest to historians and collectors’ in some areas of the national territory as the result of regional and provincial laws that apply only in those regions and provinces?
Request for a preliminary ruling from the Amtsgericht Straubing (Germany) lodged on 19 June 2019 — B & L Elektrogeräte GmbH v GC

(Case C-465/19)

(2019/C 348/03)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Amtsgericht Straubing

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: B & L Elektrogeräte GmbH

Defendant: GC

Question referred

Does an off-premises contract within the meaning of Article 2(8)(c) of Directive 2011/83/EU, (1) with the consequence of entailing a right of withdrawal pursuant to Article 9 of the directive, arise if a trader at a trade fair who is in or in front of a sales stand that is deemed to constitute business premises within the meaning of Article 2(9) of the directive solicits a consumer who is standing in the aisle in front of the sales stand in an exhibition hall at a consumer trade fair without communicating with the trader, and the contract is subsequently concluded in the sales stand?

(1) Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights, amending Council Directive 93/13/EEC and Directive 1999/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 85/577/EEC and Directive 97/7/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ 2011 L 304, p. 64).
3.

… are Articles 115, 206 and 217 of Legislative Decree No 163/2006, as interpreted by national administrative case-law, in so far as they exclude price review in the case of contracts relating to ‘special sectors’ and, in particular, in the case of contracts that have a different object from those to which Directive 2004/17/EC refers but are functionally linked to one of those objects, consistent with EU law (in particular, Article 28 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the principle of equal treatment enshrined in Articles 26 and 34 TFEU, and the principle of freedom to conduct a business enshrined in Article 16 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union)?
Appeal brought on 18 September 2019 by Italmobiliare SpA and Others against the judgment of the General Court (Seventh Chamber) delivered on 11 July 2019 in Case T-523/15 Italmobiliare SpA and Others v Commission

(Case C-694/19P)

(2019/C 372/32)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Appellants: Italmobiliare SpA, Sirap-Gema SpA, Sirap France SAS, Petruzalek GmbH, Petruzalek Kft., Petruzalek sro, Petruzalek sro (represented by: F. Moretti, avvocatessa)

Other party to the proceedings: European Commission

Form of order sought

The appellants claim that the Court should:

— set aside the judgment of the General Court in full or in part and, consequently, cancel or reduce the fines imposed on the appellants; or

— in the alternative, redetermine the fines, in the exercise of its unlimited jurisdiction, with all the consequences that that may have on the validity of the decision.

In any event, order the Commission to pay the costs of the present proceedings and of those at first instance.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the appellants rely on four grounds of appeal.

First ground of appeal: infringement of Article 101 TFEU, misapplication or failure to apply the relevant case-law principles relating to the presumption of parental liability, misuse of power, failure to state reasons, infringement of fundamental rights by the General Court in relation to the attribution of liability to Italmobiliare for the alleged misconduct. The appellants claim in particular that, in any event, such an application of the presumption infringes the principle of legal certainty, the principle that penalties must be specific to the offender and the principle of presumption of innocence laid down in Article 6(2) and Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and Articles 48 and 49 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the right to property laid down in Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the ECHR, Article 14 of the ECHR and Articles 17 and 21 of the Nice Charter, as well as the principles of non-discrimination and equal treatment.

Second ground of appeal: infringement and/or misinterpretation and misapplication of the Leniency Notice by the General Court; unlawful grant of immunity to another undertaking and existence of the appellants’ direct interest in its annulment.

Third ground of appeal: infringement of law and/or infringement of essential procedural requirements by the General Court in that it wrongly considered the fines to be proportionate and adequate.

Fourth ground of appeal: the appellants ask the Court of Justice to exercise its unlimited jurisdiction in accordance with Article 31 of Regulation No 1/2003 (1) and redetermine the fines with all the consequences that that may have on the decision.

(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 of 16 December 2002 on the implementation of the rules on competition laid down in Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty (OJ 2003 L 1, p. 1).
Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Castilla-La Mancha (Spain) lodged on 25 July 2019 — MO v Subdelegación del Gobierno en Toledo

(Case C-568/19)

(2019/C 363/13)

Language of the case: Spanish

Referring court

Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Castilla-La Mancha

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: MO

Defendant: Subdelegación del Gobierno en Toledo

Question referred

Whether an interpretation of the judgment of the Court of Justice of 23 April 2015 (Case C-38/14, Zaizoune) (1) as meaning the Spanish authorities and courts can directly apply Directive 2008/115/EC (2) to the detriment of the third-country national, thereby ignoring and disapplying more advantageous national penalty provisions, aggravating that national’s liability to a penalty and possibly disregarding the principle that criminal penalties must be defined by law, is compatible with the case-law of the Court of Justice on the limits on the direct effect of directives, and should the fact that the Spanish legislation is not in conformity with that directive be resolved not in that way but by legislative reform or by the remedies provided by EU law whereby a State can be required properly to transpose directives.

(1) Judgment of 23 April 2015, Zaizoune (C-38/14, EU:C:2015:260).

(2) Directive 2008/115/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2008 on common standards and procedures in Member States for returning illegally staying third-country nationals (OJ 2008 L 348, p. 98).
Appeal brought on 4 June 2019 by Mr Kurt Hesse against the judgment of the General Court (Fifth Chamber) delivered on 4 April 2019 in Joined Cases T-910/16 and T-911/16, Kurt Hesse and Wedl & Hofmann GmbH v European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO)

(Case C-426/19 P)

(2019/C 372/08)

Language of the case: German

Parties

Appellant: Kurt Hesse (represented by: M. Krogmann, Rechtsanwalt)

Other party to the proceedings: Wedl & Hofmann GmbH, European Union Intellectual Property Office

By order of 24 September 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed) decided that the appeal should not be allowed to proceed and ordered the appellant to bear his own costs.
Official Journal of the European Union

Appeal brought on 29 May 2019 by Primed Halberstadt Medizintechnik GmbH against the judgment of the General Court (Seventh Chamber) delivered on 20 March 2019 in Case T-138/17: Prim v EUIPO - Primed Halberstadt Medizintechnik

(Case C-421/19 P)

(2019/C 372/07)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Appellant: Primed Halberstadt Medizintechnik GmbH (represented by: R. Ingerl, Rechtsanwalt)

Other parties to the proceedings: Prim, SA (represented by: L. Broschat García, abogada), European Union Intellectual Property Office

By order of 16 September 2019 the Court of Justice (Chamber determining whether appeals may proceed) held that the appeal is not allowed to proceed and that Primed Halberstadt Medizintechnik GmbH shall bear its own costs.
Request for a preliminary ruling from the Ondernemingsrechtbank Antwerpen (Belgium) lodged on 6 August 2019 — M.I.C.M. Mircom International Content Management & Consulting Limited v Telenet BVBA

(Case C-597/19)

(2019/C 383/49)

Language of the case: Dutch

Referring court

Ondernemingsrechtbank Antwerpen

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: M.I.C.M. Mircom International Content Management & Consulting Limited

Defendant: Telenet BVBA

Questions referred

1. (a) Can the downloading of a file via a peer-to-peer network and the simultaneous provision for uploading of parts (‘pieces’) thereof (which may be very fragmentary as compared to the whole) (‘seeding’) be regarded as a communication to the public within the meaning of Article 3(1) of Directive 2001/29, (1) even if the individual pieces as such are unusable? If so, (b) is there a de minimis threshold above which the seeding of those pieces would constitute a communication to the public? (c) is the fact that seeding can take place automatically (as a result of the torrent client’s settings), and thus without the user’s knowledge, relevant?

2. (a) Can a person who is the contractual holder of the copyright (or related rights), but does not himself exploit those rights and merely claims damages from alleged infringers — and whose economic business model thus depends on the existence of piracy, not on combating it — enjoy the same rights as those conferred by Chapter II of Directive 2004/48 (2) on authors or licence holders who do exploit copyright in the normal way? (b) How can the licence holder in that case have suffered ‘prejudice’ (within the meaning of Article 13 of Directive 2004/48) as a result of the infringement?

3. Are the specific circumstances set out in questions 1 and 2 relevant when assessing the correct balance to be struck between, on the one hand, the enforcement of intellectual property rights and, on the other, the rights and freedoms safeguarded by the Charter, such as respect for private life and protection of personal data, in particular in the context of the assessment of proportionality?

4. Is, in all those circumstances, the systematic registration and general further processing of the IP-addresses of a ‘swarm’ of ‘seeders’ (by the licence holder himself, and by a third party on his behalf) legitimate under the General Data Protection Regulation, (3) and specifically under Article 6(1)(f) thereof?

(1) Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (OJ 2001 L 167, p. 10).

(2) Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (OJ 2004 L 157, p. 45).

(3) Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (OJ 2016 L 119, p. 1).
Official Journal of the European Union

Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunalul Arbitral de pe lângă Asociația de arbitraj de pe lângă Baroul Cluj (Romania) lodged on 25 February 2019 — KE v LF

(Case C-185/19)

(2019/C 383/41)

Language of the case: Romanian

Referring court

Tribunalul Arbitral de pe lângă Asociația de arbitraj de pe lângă Baroul Cluj

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: KE

Defendant: LF

By Order of 24 September 2019, the Court (Sixth Chamber) declared the request for a preliminary ruling manifestly inadmissible and declared that it manifestly lacks jurisdiction to give a ruling thereon.