ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
Case C‑230/16

Coty Germany GmbH

v

Parfümerie Akzente GmbH

(Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Competition — Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Article 101(1) TFEU — Selective distribution of luxury cosmetics products — Clause prohibiting distributors from making use of a non-authorised third party in the context of internet sales — Regulation (EU) No 330/2010 — Article 4(b) and (c))

Overview — Judgment of the Court (First Chamber), 6 December 2017

Article 101(1) TFEU must be interpreted as meaning that a selective distribution system for luxury goods designed, primarily, to preserve the luxury image of those goods complies with that provision to the extent that resellers are chosen on the basis of objective criteria of a qualitative nature that are laid down uniformly for all potential resellers and applied in a non-discriminatory fashion and that the criteria laid down do not go beyond what is necessary. (see para. 36, operative part 1)

Article 101(1) TFEU must be interpreted as not precluding a contractual clause, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which prohibits authorised distributors in a selective distribution system for luxury goods designed, primarily, to preserve the luxury image of those goods from using, in a discernible manner, third-party platforms for the internet sale of the contract goods, on condition that that clause has the objective of preserving the luxury image of those goods, that it is laid down uniformly and not applied in a discriminatory fashion, and that it is proportionate in the light of the objective pursued, these being matters to be determined by the referring court. (see para. 58, operative part 2)
In interpreting Article 18(1) of Regulation 1225/2009 on protection against dumped imports from countries not members of the European Community, which provides that the EU institutions may rely on the facts available to make provisional or final, affirmative or negative, findings where any interested party refuses access to, or otherwise does not provide, necessary information within the time limits provided in the regulation, it is necessary, in order to determine the scope of that provision, to take account of its wording, context and objectives. In that regard, the term ‘necessary information’ refers to information held by the interested parties which the EU institutions ask them to provide in order to enable them to reach the appropriate findings in an anti-dumping investigation.

Moreover as the burden lies with the EU institutions to prove that the product concerned has been dumped, that there has been injury and that there is a causal link between the dumped imports and the injury, it also falls to those institutions to establish that certain information is necessary for the purpose of reaching the appropriate conclusions in the anti-dumping investigation.

(see paras 45, 46, 57, 65)
To that end, in order to interpret standard EN 1090-1:2009+A1:2011, it is necessary, first, to refer to the content of that standard, including its annexes, as regards its scope.

It is necessary, second, to interpret a harmonised standard in the light of the mandate from which it originates. In accordance with Article 17(1) of Regulation No 305/2011, harmonised standards are to be established by the European standardisation bodies listed in Annex I to Directive 98/34 on the basis of requests issued by the Commission. Under Article 17(5) of that regulation, the Commission must assess the conformity of harmonised standards established by the European standardisation bodies with the relevant mandates. It follows that the scope of a harmonised standard cannot be interpreted more broadly than that of the mandate on which it is based.

Third, where, as in the context of the main proceedings, a product may fall within the scope of several harmonised technical specifications, it is necessary in the first place to examine whether the most recent standard had the effect of repealing the earlier one. Where, therefore, a harmonised standard does not indicate expressly that it is intended to replace another harmonised standard or one or more European technical assessments, those harmonised technical specifications remain in force and constitute special derogating rules.

Fourth, as regards guidelines published by national or international standardisation bodies, it must be noted that, even if such documents are intended to explain the scope of the harmonised standards whose references are published by the Commission, the fact remains that they cannot constitute legally binding instruments in the EU legal order. It follows that those documents are of no relevance for the interpretation of a harmonised standard, nor do they bind the national courts, even though they may be a useful guide for the implementation of the standard.

(see paras 34-36, 38, 40, 44)
Article 2(1)(a) and Article 14(2)(a) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax must be interpreted as meaning that a transfer of ownership of immovable property belonging to a taxable person for value added tax purposes to the Public Treasury of a Member State, carried out in accordance with the law and in return for a payment of compensation, constitutes a transaction subject to VAT in a situation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, where the same person simultaneously represents the expropriating authority and the municipality that is the subject of the expropriation and where the latter continues the practical management of the relevant property, even if the payment of compensation has been made only by means of an internal accounting transfer within the budget of the municipality.

(see para. 51, operative part)
Case C‑544/16

Marcandi Limited

v

Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the First-tier Tribunal (Tax Chamber)]

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Common system of value added tax (VAT) — Directive 2006/112/EC — Article 2(1)(c) — Issuing of ‘credits’ that can be used to place bids in online auctions — Supply of services for consideration — Preliminary transaction — Article 73 — Taxable amount)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber), 5 July 2018

Harmonisation of fiscal legislation—Common system of value added tax—Supply of services effected for consideration—Concept—Issuing of ‘credits’ that can be used to place bids in online auctions—Included (Council Directive 2006/112, Art. 2(1)(c)) Harmonisation of fiscal legislation—Common system of value added tax—Taxable amount—Supply of goods and services—Auctions organised by the taxable person—Delivery of goods for the benefit of users who have won an auction or those who purchased using the ‘buy now’ or ‘earned discount’ features—Consideration obtained in exchange for the delivery of goods made by the taxable person to the users—Concept—Value of the ‘credits’ used to bid—Not included (Council Directive 2006/112, Art. 73) Questions referred for a preliminary ruling—Reference to the Court—Obligation to seek a preliminary ruling—Scope—Transaction subject to different tax treatment in two Member States for the purposes of value added tax—Included—Condition—Decision issued by the referring court against which there is no judicial remedy under national law (Art. 267 TFEU)
As regards an action brought against the Commission for the annulment of a decision rejecting a proposal for financial support from the EU, in the context of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), allegedly contained in the email sent to the applicant by the Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA), the General Court erred in law in declaring the action inadmissible and dismissing the appellant’s request for its action to be regarded as directed against the Commission’s decision establishing the list of proposals selected for receiving EU financial assistance.

Given that, on the date on which the action was lodged, the appellant was not aware of the existence of the Commission decision which, contrary to the requirements stemming from the principle of sound administration, was not, at any time, the subject of notification to the appellant, the latter was not in a position to be able to identify, in its application, that decision as that by which the Commission rejected its proposal and could legitimately regard the INEA’s email as constituting the notification of the rejection of its proposal by the Commission. It follows that the General Court, having regard to the circumstances of the case and in order to guarantee for the appellant the right to effective judicial protection, should have recognised that the subject-matter of the action was the annulment, not of the INEA’s email, to which the appellant erroneously referred in its application before the General Court, but the Commission’s decision. That is all the more so given that the action was expressly directed against the Commission and only the Commission had the power to adopt a refusal decision in the context of the procedure for selecting eligible proposals for a grant under the CEF.

(see paras 68, 70-73)
In a situation in which a Union citizen has made use of his freedom of movement by moving to and taking up genuine residence, in accordance with the conditions laid down in Article 7(1) of Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States amending Regulation (EEC) No 1612/68 and repealing Directives 64/221/EEC, 68/360/EEC, 72/194/EEC, 73/148/EEC, 75/34/EEC, 75/35/EEC, 90/364/EEC, 90/365/EEC and 93/96/EEC, in a Member State other than that of which he is a national, and, whilst there, has created and strengthened a family life with a third-country national of the same sex to whom he is joined by a marriage lawfully concluded in the host Member State, Article 21(1) TFEU must be interpreted as precluding the competent authorities of the Member State of which the Union citizen is a national from refusing to grant that third-country national a right of residence in the territory of that Member State on the ground that the law of that Member State does not recognise marriage between persons of the same sex.

(see para. 51, operative part 1)
Environment—Protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources—Directive 91/676—Implementation of action programmes in respect of vulnerable zones—Obligation of the Member States to adopt any additional measures necessary to achieve the objective laid down in the directive—Obligation to implement them as of the start of the first action programme or as of the point at which it first becomes clear they are necessary—Assessment of the inadequacy of the measures in force—Criteria

(Council Directive 91/676, Arts 1, 3(1), 5(4), 5 and 7, and 10 and Annexes I, A, points 2 and 3, and V(4)(e))

(see paras 51-53, 60, 61, 63, 64, 66-68)
Case C‑664/16

Lucreţiu Hadrian Vădan

v

Agenţia Naţională de Administrare Fiscală — Direcţia Generală de Soluţionare a Contestaţiilor

and

Direcţia Generală Regională a Finanţelor Publice Braşov — Administraţia Judeţeană a Finanţelor Publice Alba

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

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Common system of value added tax — Directive 2006/112/EC — Articles 167, 168, 178 and 273 — Scope of the right of deduction — Absence of invoices — Recourse to a court-commissioned expert report — Burden of proof of the right of deduction — Principles of fiscal neutrality and proportionality)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber) of 21 November 2018

Harmonisation of fiscal legislation — Common system of value added tax — Deduction of input tax — Obligations of the taxable person — Holding of an invoice containing certain information — Absence of invoice or any other document proving the right of deduction — Providing other evidence — Recourse to a court-commissioned expert report — No right of deduction solely on the basis of that court-commissioned expert report

(Council Directive 2006/112, Arts 167, 168, 178(a) and 179)

Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax, in particular Articles 167, 168, 178(a) and 179, and the principles of the neutrality of value added tax (VAT) and proportionality, must be interpreted as meaning that, in circumstances such as those at issue in the main proceedings, a taxable person who is unable to provide evidence of the amount of input VAT he has paid, by producing invoices or any other document, cannot benefit from a right to deduct VAT solely on the basis of an assessment resulting from an expert report commissioned by a national court.

(see para. 48, operative part)
Competition – EU rules – Infringements – Committed intentionally or negligently – Meaning – Undertaking not capable of being unaware of the anti-competitive nature of its conduct – Agreement concluded between an originator company and a generic medicine undertaking – Included

(Art. 101 TFEU; Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 47; Council Regulation No 1/2003, Arts 5, 23(2))

(see paras 122-126)
Article 56 TFEU must be interpreted as precluding legislation of a Member State, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, whereby the payment of income by a resident company to a company established in another Member State is, in principle, subject to withholding tax, except where otherwise provided in the double taxation convention entered into between those two Member States, if that legislation requires the resident company, which neither deducts nor pays that sum to the tax authorities of the first Member State, to pay irrecoverable default interest for the period from the expiry of the time limit for payment of the income tax up to the date on which the non-resident company proves that the requirements for the application of the double taxation convention have been fulfilled, even though, in accordance with that convention, the non-resident company is not liable to pay any tax in the first Member State or the amount thereof is lower than that normally payable under the tax law of that Member State.

As regards the reasons put forward in order to justify the restriction on the freedom to provide services, and as has been noted in paragraph 53 of this judgment, the Court has already held that the need to ensure the effective collection of tax and the need to ensure the effectiveness of fiscal supervision may constitute overriding reasons in the public interest capable of justifying a restriction on the freedom to provide services. The Court has also held that the imposition of penalties, including criminal penalties, may be considered to be necessary in order to ensure compliance with national rules, subject, however, to the condition that the nature and amount of the penalty imposed is in each individual case proportionate to the gravity of the infringement which it is designed to penalise (see, to that effect, judgment of 26 May 2016, NN (L) International, C‑48/15, EU:C:2016:356, paragraph 59 and the case-law cited). However, national legislation providing for a penalty in the form of irrecoverable interest, calculated on the basis of the sum of tax payable at source according to national legislation and which has accrued for the period from the date on which the tax becomes payable to the date on which the documents proving that the double taxation convention is applicable are submitted to the tax authorities, is not appropriate to ensure the attainment of the objectives referred to in the previous paragraph in the event that it is established that the tax is not payable under the relevant convention. In a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, there is no connection between the amount of interest payable, on the one hand, and the amount of tax payable, of which there is none, or the seriousness of the delay in providing those documents to the tax authorities, on the other. Furthermore, such a penalty goes beyond what is necessary to attain those objectives, given that the amount of interest accrued may prove to be excessive compared to the amount of tax payable and given that no possibility for that interest to be reimbursed is provided for.

(see paras 57, 59, 60, 63, operative part)
7

Under Article 1 of the consolidated text of the Ley del Estatuto de los Trabajadores (Law on the Workers’ Statute), approved by the Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1995 (Royal Legislative Decree 1/1995), of 24 March 1995 (BOE No 75, of 29 March 1995, p. 9654), in the version applicable at the time of the facts at issue in the main proceedings (‘Workers’ Statute’): ‘(1) This Law shall apply to workers who voluntarily offer their services in return for payment by another within an organisation and under the direction of a natural or legal person, known as the employer or undertaking. … (3) The following shall be excluded from the scope of this Law: … (g) in general, any activity performed outside the scope of paragraph 1 of this article. To that end, the following shall be excluded from employment relations: activities carried out by persons providing transport services by virtue of administrative authorisations held by them, which are carried out in return for the corresponding price, using commercial vehicles designed to fulfil transport activities covered by specific rules and which are owned by those persons or in whom a direct power of disposal is vested, even if those services are provided continuously to the same shipper or trader. …’
4

Under Article 220(2) of that code: ‘Except in the cases referred to in the second and third subparagraphs of Article 217(1), subsequent entry in the accounts shall not occur where: … (b) the amount of duty legally owed was not entered in the accounts as a result of an error on the part of the customs authorities which could not reasonably have been detected by the person liable for payment, the latter for his part having acted in good faith and complied with all the provisions laid down by the legislation in force as regards the customs declaration. Where the preferential status of the goods is established on the basis of a system of administrative cooperation involving the authorities of a third country, the issue of a certificate by those authorities, should it prove to be incorrect, shall constitute an error which could not reasonably have been detected within the meaning of the first subparagraph. The issue of an incorrect certificate shall not, however, constitute an error where the certificate is based on an incorrect account of the facts provided by the exporter, except where, in particular, it is evident that the issuing authorities were aware or should have been aware that the goods did not satisfy the conditions laid down for entitlement to the preferential treatment. The person liable for payment may plead good faith when he can demonstrate that, during the period of the trading operations concerned, he has taken due care to ensure that all the conditions for the preferential treatment have been fulfilled. The person liable for payment may not, however, plead good faith if the European Commission has published a notice in the Official Journal of the European [Union], stating that there are grounds for doubt concerning the proper application of the preferential arrangements by the beneficiary country; …’
23

In those circumstances, the Krajowa Izba Odwoławcza (National Appeal Chamber, Poland) decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling: ‘(1) Can Article 10 of [Directive 2004/17] be interpreted as meaning that the contracting authority can be required to invite economic operators which have not submitted within the prescribed period (that is to say, the period specified for submitting tenders) “declarations or documents” requested by the contracting authority proving that the tendered supplies, services or works satisfy the requirements laid down by the contracting authority (that term also covering samples of the subject matter of the contract), or which submitted “declarations or documents” requested by the contracting authority containing errors, to submit “declarations or documents” (samples) which are missing or which correct errors within a specified additional period, without laying down a prohibition under which supplemented “declarations or documents” (samples) cannot alter the content of the tender? (2) Can Article 10 of [Directive 2004/17] EC be interpreted as meaning that the contracting authority can retain the deposit lodged by the economic operator if that operator, in response to the contracting authority’s invitation to supplement the tender, did not submit “documents or declarations” (samples) proving that the tendered supplies, services or works satisfy the requirements laid down by the contracting authority, where that supplementation would result in a change to the content of the tender, or did not consent to the contracting authority’s correction of the tender, which made it impossible to select the tender submitted by the economic operator as being the most advantageous? (3) Must Article 1(3) of [Directive 92/13] be interpreted as meaning that “a particular contract”, as referred to in that provision in the phrase “interest in obtaining a particular contract”, means “a particular procedure carried out for the award of a public contract” (in this case: that published in the notice of 3 June 2015), or “the particular subject matter of the contract” (in this case: the service of digitising the contracting authority’s archive documents), irrespective of whether, as a consequence of an appeal being allowed, the contracting authority will be required to annul the procedure for the award of a public contract and possibly to initiate a subsequent procedure for the award of a public contract?’
29

In those circumstances, the Areios Pagos (Supreme Court of Cassation) decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following question to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling: ‘Does the jurisdiction clause which has been agreed pursuant to Article 23 of the Brussels I Regulation between companies and in the present case is included in the privately-executed agreement of 14 November 2007 between Malcon Navigation and Brave Bulk Transport, Article 10 of which provides that “the present agreement shall be governed by English law, it shall be subject to English jurisdiction and any dispute arising from or in connection with it shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court of England and Wales”, also encompass, as regards acts and omissions of the organs of Brave Bulk Transport, who represent it and give rise to liability on its part pursuant to Article 71 of the Greek Civil Code, the persons responsible who acted in the performance of their duties and are liable under that article, in conjunction with Article 926 of the Greek Civil Code, jointly and severally with the company, a legal person?’