ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
Case C‑185/17

Mitnitsa Varna

v

SAKSA ООD

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Administrativen sad — Varna)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Common Customs Tariff — Classification of goods — Harmonised European standard EN 590:2013 — Subheading 27101943 of the Combined Nomenclature — Relevant criteria for the classification of goods as gas oil)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Tenth Chamber), 22 February 2018

Customs union — Common Customs Tariff — Tariff headings — Mineral oil of which more than 65% distils, by the ISO 3405 method, at 250o Celsius — Classification under subheading 27101943 of the Combined Nomenclature — Not included — Oil meeting the requirements referred to in harmonised European standard EN 590:2013 — Irrelevant

(Commission Regulation No 2658/87, Annex I, subheading 27101943)

The Combined Nomenclature contained in Annex I to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 of 23 July 1987 on the tariff and statistical nomenclature and on the Common Customs Tariff, in the version resulting from Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1101/2014 of 16 October 2014 must be interpreted as meaning that a mineral oil, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, may not, on account of its distillation characteristics, be classified as gas oil under subheading 27101943 of that nomenclature, even when that oil meets the requirements referred to in harmonised standard EN 590:2013, in the version of the month of September 2013, relating to gas oil for arctic or severe winter climates.

In the present case, it should be noted that CN subheading 27101943, the wording of which refers to gas oils with a sulphur content not exceeding 0.001% by weight comes under CN heading 2710, which concerns petroleum oils and oils obtained from bituminous minerals, other than crude. For the purposes of that heading, additional note 2 to chapter 27 of the CN defines the concept of ‘gas oils’ in point (e) thereof.

In that regard, it follows from the wording of point (e), read in combination with point (d) of that additional note, that, inter alia, oils and preparations of which less than 65% by volume (including losses) distils at 250 °C and 85% or more at 350 °C, by the ISO 3405 method, are considered to be ‘gas oils’.

Accordingly, it is clear from the wording of those points that, for the purpose of the tariff classification of a product as gas oil, the only determining factor in the context of CN heading 2710 is the distillation rate at the temperatures indicated, by the ISO 3405 method.

Consequently, since, in the present case, the parties to the main proceedings do not dispute that more than 65% of the mineral oil in question distils, by the ISO 3405 method, at 250 °Celsius, it does not fall within the definition of ‘gas oils’ in accordance with additional note 2(e) to Chapter 27 of the CN and cannot be classified under the subheadings relating to products which fall within the scope of that definition.

(see paras 32-35, 43, operative part)
Case C‑154/17

SIA ‘E LATS’

v

Valsts ieņēmumu dienests

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Augstākā tiesa)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Taxation — Value added tax — Directive 2006/112/EC — Article 311(1)(1) — Special arrangements for second-hand goods — Definition of ‘second-hand goods’ — Goods containing precious metals or precious stones resold by a trader — Processing of those goods after sale — Recovery of the precious metals or precious stones — Concept of ‘precious metals or precious stones’)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Tenth Chamber), 11 July 2018

Harmonisation of fiscal legislation — Common system of value added tax — Special arrangements — Special arrangements for second-hand goods — Concept of ‘second-hand goods’ — Used goods containing precious metals or precious stones which are no longer capable of performing their initial function and have retained only the functionalities inherent in those metals and stones — Not included

(Council Directive 2006/112, Art. 311(1)(1))

Article 311(1)(1) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of ‘second-hand goods’ does not cover used goods containing precious metals or precious stones if those goods are no longer capable of performing their initial function and have retained only the functionalities inherent in those metals and stones, which is for the national court to determine taking into account all the objective circumstances relevant in each individual case.

(see para. 39, operative part)
Case C‑16/17

TGE Gas Engineering GmbH — Sucursal em Portugal

v

Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunal Arbitral Tributário (Centro de Arbitragem Administrativa))

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Value added tax (VAT) — Deduction of input tax — Origin and scope of the right to deduct)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber), 7 August 2018

Harmonisation of fiscal legislation — Common system of value added tax — Deduction of input tax — Origin and scope of the right to deduct — Principle of neutrality — Non-resident company and its resident branch constituting two separate taxable entities because they each have a different tax identification number — Tax on debit notes issued by an economic interest group of which that company, but not its branch, is a member — Refusal of the right of deduction to the branch — Not permissible

(Council Directive 2006/112, as amended by Directive 2010/45, Arts 167 and 168)

Articles 167 and 168 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax, as amended by Council Directive 2010/45/EU of 13 July 2010, and the principle of neutrality must be interpreted as precluding the tax authority of a Member State from regarding a company which has its headquarters in another Member State and the branch which it has in the first of those States as constituting two separate taxable entities on the ground that each of those entities has a tax identification number, and, for that reason, from refusing that branch the right to deduct value added tax (VAT) on the debit notes issued by an economic interest group of which that company, and not its branch, is a member.

(see para. 51, operative part)
Case C‑69/17

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy România SRL

v

Agenţia Naţională de Administrare Fiscală — Direcţia Generală de Soluţionare a Contestaţiilor and Agenţia Naţională de Administrare Fiscală — Direcţia Generală de Administrare a Marilor Contribuabili

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Curtea de Apel Bucureşti)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Taxation — Value added tax (VAT) — Right of deduction — Acquisitions made by a taxpayer declared ‘inactive’ by the tax authorities — Refusal of the right of deduction — Principles of proportionality and neutrality of VAT)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Seventh Chamber), 12 September 2018

Harmonisation of fiscal legislation — Common system of value added tax — Deduction of input tax — Right to deduction — Acquisitions made by a taxpayer declared ‘inactive’ by the tax authorities — National legislation allowing the right of deduction in relation to those acquisitions to be refused — Not permissible

(Council Directive 2006/112, Arts 213, 214 and 273)

Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax, as amended by Council Directive 2010/45/EU of 13 July 2010, in particular Articles 213, 214 and 273 thereof, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, under which it is permissible for the tax authorities to refuse, on account of a failure to submit tax returns, a taxable person which has made acquisitions in the period during which its value added tax identification number was revoked the right to deduct value added tax on those acquisitions using value added tax returns filed — or invoices issued — after the reactivation of its identification number, on the sole ground that those acquisitions took place in the period during which its value added tax identification number was de-activated and where the substantive requirements have been satisfied and the right of deduction is not being invoked fraudulently or abusively.

(see para. 44, operative part)
So as not to neglect its role, the EU judicature must examine the various claims and pleas submitted by an applicant, as formulated in his pleadings, without modifying their nature or substance.

The obligation to state reasons does not require the EU judicature to provide an account which follows exhaustively and one by one all the arguments put forward by the parties to the case and that the reasoning may therefore be implicit on condition that it enables the persons concerned to know why the EU judicature has not upheld their arguments.

In that regard, as regards a decision by which the Court of Justice finds that the General Court has not erred in law by refusing, despite the factors relied on by the appellant, to rebut the presumption of a decisive influence on a subsidiary and, thereby, to comply with the obligation to state reasons, it is sufficient, for the purposes of complying with its obligation to state reasons, for the Court of Justice to invoke the legal principle on which it considered that the General Court was entitled to find that the factors relied on were not capable of rebutting that presumption.

(see paras 26, 27)
Case C‑537/17

Claudia Wegener

v

Royal Air Maroc SA

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Landgericht Berlin)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Air transport — Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 — Article 3(1) — Scope — Definition of ‘connecting flight’ — Flight departing from an airport situated in the territory of a Member State, including a transfer at an airport situated in the territory of a third State and destined for another airport of that third State)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Eighth Chamber), 31 May 2018

Transport — Air transport — Regulation No 261/2004 — Common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights — Scope — Definition of ‘connecting flight’ — Flight departing from an airport situated in the territory of a Member State, including a transfer at an airport situated in the territory of a third State and destined for another airport of that third State — Included

(European Parliament and Council Regulation No 261/2004, Art. 3(1)(a))

Article 3(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights, and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 295/91, must be interpreted as meaning that the regulation applies to a passenger transport effected under a single booking and comprising, between its departure from an airport situated in the territory of a Member State and its arrival at an airport situated in the territory of a third State, a scheduled stopover outside the European Union with a change of aircraft.

(see para. 25, operative part)
The General Court may hear and determine only claims arising from the contract concluded with the European Union which contains the arbitration clause, or claims that are directly connected with the obligations arising from that contract.

In that regard, it is common ground that all the previous employment contracts concluded between the appellant and his employers contain a clause that expressly provides that disputes arising from, or relating to, those contracts will be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of a Member State and that only the final fixed-term contract expressly provides that disputes arising from, or relating, that contract will be subject to the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice under Article 272 TFEU.

It is clear that, as the application was lodged on the basis of Article 272 TFEU, the General Court has jurisdiction, in principle, to hear and determine only the claims arising from the final contract or which are directly connected with that contract.

As the appellant’s claims that all his contractual relationships should be recategorised as a contract of indefinite duration and that he should be granted the rights which may follow as a result of such recategorisation are are linked to the existence of a single employment relationship based on a series of consecutive fixed-term contracts, they are directed at the recategorisation of all the contracts concluded and are based on all of those contracts, including the final contract.

(see paras 40, 42, 43, 46, 47)
Case C‑121/17

Teva UK Ltd and Others

v

Gilead Sciences Inc.

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the High Court of Justice (England & Wales), Chancery Division (Patents Court))

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Medicinal products for human use — Treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) — Originator medicines and generic medicines — Supplementary protection certificate — Regulation (EC) No 469/2009 — Article 3(a) — Conditions for obtaining — Concept of a ‘product protected by a basic patent in force’ — Criteria for assessment)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber), 25 July 2018

Approximation of laws — Uniform legislation — Industrial and commercial property — Patent right — Supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products — Conditions for obtaining — Product covered by a basic patent in force — Application to a product composed of a combination of active ingredients — Criteria for assessment

(European Parliament and Council Regulation No 469/2009, Art. 3(a))

Article 3(a) of Regulation No 469/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009, concerning the supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products, must be interpreted as meaning that a product composed of several active ingredients with a combined effect is ‘protected by a basic patent in force’ within the meaning of that provision where, even if the combination of active ingredients of which that product is composed is not expressly mentioned in the claims of the basic patent, those claims relate necessarily and specifically to that combination. For that purpose, from the point of view of a person skilled in the art and on the basis of the prior art at the filing date or priority date of the basic patent:

– the combination of those active ingredients must necessarily, in the light of the description and drawings of that patent, fall under the invention covered by that patent, and

– each of those active ingredients must be specifically identifiable, in the light of all the information disclosed by that patent.

Accordingly, having regard to the objectives pursued by Regulation No 469/2009, the claims cannot allow the holder of the basic patent to enjoy, by obtaining a supplementary protection certificate, protection which goes beyond that granted for the invention covered by that patent. Thus for the purposes of the application of Article 3(a) of that regulation, the claims of the basic patent must be construed in the light of the limits of that invention, as it appears from the description and the drawings of that patent. It follows from the above that the subject matter of the protection conferred by a supplementary protection certificate must be restricted to the technical specifications of the invention covered by the basic patent, such as claimed in that patent.

(see paras 43, 46, 57, operative part)
Article 34 TFEU does not preclude national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which provides that the sales designation ‘ibérico de cebo’ may be granted only to products that comply with certain conditions imposed by that legislation, since that legislation permits the importation and marketing of products from Member States other than the State that adopted the legislation at issue, under the designations they bear pursuant to the rules of the Member State of origin, even if they are similar, comparable or identical to the designations provided for in the national legislation at issue in the main proceedings.

Article 3(1)(a) of Council Directive 2008/120/EC of 18 December 2008 laying down minimum standards for the protection of pigs, read in conjunction with Article 12 of that directive, must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, providing that the use of certain sales designations for Iberian pig products processed or marketed in Spain is subject to producers complying with conditions for the rearing of Iberian pigs that are more stringent than those laid down in Article 3(1)(a) as well as a condition imposing a minimum slaughter age of 10 months.

However, it should be noted that the objective of the national legislation at issue in the main proceedings is not the protection of pigs, but rather the improvement of the quality of the products. Consequently, Royal Decree 4/2014 does not fall within the scope of Directive 2008/120.

Nevertheless, by increasing both the minimum unobstructed floor area available to each animal and the minimum slaughter age, that legislation is not liable to compromise the welfare of the animals and is therefore not incompatible with that directive.

(see paras 34, 35, 36, operative part 2)
It is clear from the very wording of the second indent of Article 8(2) of Directive 93/42, concerning medical devices, that rights to compensation may be conferred only on the manufacturer of the medical device or his authorised representative under Article 8 of that directive. Consequently, the inventor of the medical device at issue, may not rely on rights to compensation associated with his personal situation.

The damage for which compensation is sought in an action to establish non-contractual liability on the part of the European Union, under the second paragraph of Article 340 TFEU, must be actual and certain, which it is for the appellant to prove. It is for the latter to adduce conclusive proof as to both the existence and the extent of the damage he alleges.

As regards alleged material damage consisting of procedural costs and lawyers’ fees paid in connection with an action against a decision of national authorities prohibiting the placing on the market of a medical device, due to the absence of a Commission decision on the basis of Article 8(2) of Directive 93/42, concerning medical devices, it is true that determination of such damage may involve some specificities relating, in particular, to the fact that the action had not been concluded at the time the application initiating proceedings was lodged. Nevertheless, the appellant may not be entirely excused from the obligation to adduce proof of the damage he claims to have suffered. It falls to him, in relation to that type of material damage, to adduce evidence both of the existence of the damage and of the data on which he has based his assessment of that damage, given that such an assessment may not be performed merely on an equitable basis. Accordingly, it is not sufficient that the appellant referred only to procedural costs and lawyers’ fees paid in connection with the action without in any way quantifying the extent of such expenses, either by calculation or estimation.

(see paras 147, 151-153)
In a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, an actio pauliana, whereby the person entitled to a debt arising under a contract requests that an act by which his debtor has transferred an asset to a third party and which is allegedly detrimental to his rights be declared ineffective in relation to the creditor, is covered by the rule of international jurisdiction provided for in Article 7(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.

As the Court has consistently held, the application of this rule of special jurisdiction presupposes the establishment of a legal obligation freely consented to by one person towards another and on which the claimant’s action is based (see, to that effect, judgments of 20 January 2005, Engler, C‑27/02, EU:C:2005:33, paragraph 51; of 18 July 2013, ÖFAB, C‑147/12, EU:C:2013:490, paragraph 33; and of 21 January 2016, ERGO Insurance and Gjensidige Baltic, C‑359/14 and C‑475/14, EU:C:2016:40, paragraph 44).

The actio pauliana is based on the creditor’s personal claim against the debtor and seeks to protect whatever security he may have over the debtor’s estate (judgments of 10 January 1990, Reichert and Kockler, C‑115/88, EU:C:1990:3, paragraph 12, and of 26 March 1992, Reichert and Kockler, C‑261/90, EU:C:1992:149, paragraph 17). It thus preserves the interests of the creditor with a view in particular to a subsequent enforcement of the debtor’s obligations (judgment of 26 March 1992, Reichert and Kockler, C‑261/90, EU:C:1992:149, paragraph 28).

By this action the creditor seeks a declaration that the transfer of assets by the debtor to a third party has caused detriment to the creditor’s rights deriving from the binding nature of the contract and which correspond with the obligations freely consented to by the debtor. The cause of this action therefore lies essentially in the breach of these obligations towards the creditor to which the debtor agreed.

It is thus necessary that in addition to the forum of the defendant’s domicile, there should be a supplementary ground of jurisdiction, namely that prescribed by Article 7(1)(a) of Regulation No 1215/2012, such jurisdiction meeting, with regard to the contractual origin of the relationship between the creditor and debtor, both the requirement for legal certainty and foreseeability and the aim to facilitate the sound administration of justice.

(see paras 39-41, 43, 44, 49, operative part)
Articles 1(2)(a) of Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of ‘contract for pecuniary interest’ includes a decision by which a contracting authority directly awards, to a specific economic operator, and therefore without organising a public tendering procedure, specific-purpose funding for the manufacture of products to be supplied free of charge by that economic operator to various authorities which are exempt from payment of any consideration to the supplier, except for the payment of a fixed sum of EUR 180 per delivery, for transport costs.

It follows that a contract, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, by which an economic operator undertakes to manufacture and supply a product to various authorities in exchange for specific-purpose funding granted for the achievement of that objective, falls within the definition of contract ‘for pecuniary interest’ within the meaning of Article 1(2)(a) of Directive 2004/18, even though the costs of production and distribution of that product are not fully covered by that grant or by the transport costs which may be charged to those authorities.

(see paras 31, 32, operative part 1)