ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
Order of the General Court (Fourth Chamber) of 12 December 2012 — Sacaim and Others v Commission

(Case T-261/00)

‛Action for annulment — State aid — Reductions in social security contributions for undertakings in Venice and Chioggia — Decision declaring the aid scheme incompatible with the common market and requiring recovery of the aid paid — Action in part manifestly inadmissible and in part manifestly lacking any foundation in law’

1. Judicial proceedings — Objection of inadmissibility — Decision to join the application for a separate ruling on the objection of inadmissibility to the substance — Dismissal of an action on the substance without ruling on that objection — Discretion of the General Court (Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Arts 111 and 114(4)) (see paras 20-22)

2. State aid — Concept — Granting of an advantage to beneficiaries — Measures designed to compensate for possible competitive disadvantages affecting undertakings established in a given region of a Member State — Included (Art. 87(1) and (3) EC) (see paras 29, 30)

3. State aid — Examination by the Commission — Examination of an aid scheme as a whole — Lawfulness (Arts 87(1) EC and 88 EC) (see para. 36)

4. State aid — Adverse effect on competition — Effect on trade between Member States — Scope of the burden of proof on the Commission (Art. 88 EC) (see para. 39)

5. State aid — Prohibition — Exceptions — Aid which may be considered compatible with the common market — Aid for the development of particular areas — Exclusion of operating aid save in exceptional circumstances (Art. 87(3)(c) EC) (see paras 49, 50)

6. State aid — Commission decision — Assessment of legality by reference to the information available at the time of adoption of the decision (see para. 53)

Re:

APPLICATION for annulment of Commission Decision 2000/394/EC of 25 November 1999 on aid to firms in Venice and Chioggia by way of relief from social security contributions under Laws Nos 30/1997 and 206/1995 (OJ 2000 L 150, p. 50).

Operative part

1. The objection of inadmissibility raised by the European Commission is joined to the substance of the case.

2. The action is dismissed as being in part manifestly inadmissible and in part manifestly lacking any foundation in law.

3. Sacaim SpA, Alfier Costruzioni Srl, Azin Asfalti Srl, Barbato Srl, Camata Costruzioni Sas, Dal Carlo Mario & C. Srl, Impresa Costruzioni Civili e Montaggi Srl (ICCEM), Rossi Renzo Costruzioni Srl, Vettore Costruzioni Srl, ACEA – Associazione dei Costruttori Edili ed Affini di Venezia e Provincia and Comitato ‘Venezia vuole vivere’ are ordered to bear their own costs and to pay those incurred by the Commission.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Applications for interim measures - Conditions governing admissibility - Admissibility of the main application - Irrelevant - Limits

(Arts 242 EC and 243 EC; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104(1))

2. Applications for interim relief - Suspension of operation of a measure - Interim relief - Conditions for granting - Serious and irreparable damage - Standard of proof

(Art. 242 EC)

Summary

1. The question of the admissibility of the main application should not, in principle, be examined in proceedings relating to an application for interim measures, so as not to prejudge the substance of the case. It may nevertheless be found necessary, when it is contended that the main application to which the application for interim measures relates is manifestly inadmissible, to establish whether there are any grounds for concluding prima facie that the main application is admissible.

( see para. 38 )

2. Although, in order to establish the existence of serious and irreparable damage within the framework of an application for interim measures, it is not necessary to require absolute proof that that damage will occur and it is enough for it to be foreseeable with a sufficient degree of probability, the applicant is still required to prove the facts opening up the prospect of such serious and irreparable damage.

( see para. 62 )
ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE THIRD CHAMBER OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

28 June 2001

Case T-20/01

Maria Concetta Ceratogli and Others

v

European Central Bank

‛Intervention’

Full text in German II-675

Application for:

leave to intervene.

Held:

International and European Public Services Organisation (IPSO) is granted leave to intervene in support of the form of order sought by the applicants. A period is to be prescribed within which the intervener must lodge its statement in intervention. The Registrar is to serve on the intervener a copy of every document served on the parties. The costs are reserved.

Summary

Procedure — Intervention — Actions concerning the civil service — Intervention by a trade-union organisation — Admissibility — Conditions

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 115; EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 37, second para.)
ORDER OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fifth Chamber)

1 April 2003

Case T-11/01

Catherine Mascetti

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Contract as a member of the temporary staff — Admissibility — Act adversely affecting an official — Compliance with time-limits under the Staff Regulations — Second renewal of a contract as a member of the temporary staff — Articles 2(d), 8 and 47 of the Conditions of Employment’

Full text in Italian II-579

Application for:

annulment of the decision of 28 September 2000 by which the authority empowered to conclude contracts of employment rejected the complaint lodged by the applicant seeking a declaration that the employment relationship which bound her to the Commission was a relationship of indefinite period under a contract as a member of the temporary staff pursuant to Article 2(d) of the Conditions of Employment of other Servants, renewed on more than one occasion with the effects referred to in the last paragraph of Article 8 of those conditions.

Held:

The action is dismissed as inadmissible. The parties are to bear their own costs.

Summary
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Actions for annulment - Natural or legal persons - Measures of direct and individual concern to them - Direct concern - Criteria - Commission decision addressed to a Member State refusing to extend the time-limit for submission of an application for final payment in respect of Community financial assistance - Company which holds the concession contract for completion of a project eligible for assistance and which has received from the national authorities the full amount provided for under that assistance - Direct concern - None

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC)

Summary

$$For a contested Community measure to be of direct concern to a private applicant to whom it is not addressed, as a condition governing the admissibility of an action for annulment, it must directly affect the applicant's legal situation and its implementation must be purely automatic and result from Community rules alone without the application of other intermediate rules. Where the measure is implemented by national authorities to whom it is addressed, such is the case if the measure leaves no discretion to those authorities. The same applies where the opportunity for addressees not to give effect to the Community measure is purely theoretical and their intention to act in conformity with it is not in doubt.

A Commission decision addressed to a Member State refusing to extend the time-limit for submission of an application for final payment in respect of assistance granted under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is not of direct concern to a company which holds a concession contract concluded with the granting authority and entrusting that company with the completion of a project eligible for ERDF assistance in so far as the national authorities paid to that company the full amount provided for under the Community assistance and no obligation to repay the difference between that amount and the amount which the Commission paid to the Member State follows from the contested decision itself or from any provision of Community law intended to govern the effect of that decision.

( see paras 45-46, 50-51, 54-55 )
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Procedure – Intervention – Conditions governing admissibility

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 40, second para., and 53, first para.)

2. Procedure – Intervention – Persons having an interest

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 40, second para.)

Summary

1. Under the second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, which applies to proceedings before the Court of First Instance by virtue of the first paragraph of Article 53 of the Statute, any person establishing an interest in the result of a case, save in cases between Member States, between Community institutions or between Member States and Community institutions, shall have the right to intervene in that case.

An interest in the result of the case for the purposes of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice means a direct, present interest in the grant of the particular form of order sought that the application to intervene is designed to support, and not an interest in relation to the pleas or arguments raised. The word ‘result’ is to be understood as referring to the operative part of the final judgment which the parties ask the Court to deliver. It is necessary, in particular, to ascertain whether the intervener is directly affected by the contested measure and whether his interest in the result of the case is established. A distinction should moreover be drawn between prospective interveners establishing a direct interest in the ruling on the specific measure whose annulment is sought and those who can establish only an indirect interest in the result of the case by reason of similarities between their situation and that of one of the parties.

(see paras 4, 15)

2. Intervention is permissible by representative associations whose object is to protect their members in cases raising questions of principle liable to affect those members.

(see para. 6)
Case T-184/01

IMS Health, Inc.

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Action for annulment – Suspension of application then withdrawal of the contested decision in the course of the proceedings – No need to adjudicate)

Order of the Court of First Instance (Fifth Chamber), 10 March 2005

Summary of the Order

1. Actions for annulment – Action contesting a decision which was successively the object of a stay of execution and withdrawal in the course of proceedings – Disappearance of all legal effects prejudicial to the applicant – Application devoid of purpose – No need to adjudicate

(Art. 230 EC)

2. Procedure – Costs – No need to adjudicate – Action rendered devoid of purpose by withdrawal of the contested decision – Change in the circumstances underlying the adoption of that decision – Each party to bear its own costs

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 87(6))

1. The applicant may retain an interest in the annulment of a measure withdrawn in the course of proceedings if the annulment of that measure may in itself have legal consequences.

Where application of the contested decision is suspended, it cannot have had legal effect between the suspension of its application and the entry into force of the decision withdrawing it, so that, unless effects prejudicial to the applicant remain for the period prior to the suspension, the action is devoid of purpose, rendering it unnecessary to adjudicate.

(see paras 38, 40-41, 47, 49)

2. Where the Commission in the course of proceedings has withdrawn a decision relating to proceedings for the application of Article 82 EC because of a change in the circumstances underlying its adoption, namely the state of competition, and where neither the decision to withdraw nor the documents placed in the file lead to the conclusion that the Commission accepted that that decision was unlawful in the light of the pleas in law advanced by the applicant, a fair reflection of the circumstances requires that each party bear its own costs.

(see paras 53, 55)
ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

19 December 2002

Case T-320/02 R

Monika Esch-Leonhardt and Others

v

European Central Bank

‛Procedure for interim relief — Urgency — No urgency’

Full text in German II-1555

Application for:

the provisional removal of a document from the applicants' personal files.

Held:

The application for interim measures is dismissed. The costs are reserved.

Summary

Applications for interim measures — Interim measures — Conditions for granting — Burden of proof — Serious and irreparable damage — Circumstances in which nonmaterial damage cannot be remedied more satisfactorily by means of interim relief than by a ruling on the substance — No serious and irreparable damage

(Art. 243 EC; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104(2))

The purpose of the procedure for interim relief is not to ensure that damage is made good but to ensure that the judgment on the substance takes full effect. In order to attain that objective the relief sought must be urgent in the sense that, in order to avoid serious and irreparable damage to the interests of the applicant, it must be ordered and produce its effects before decision is reached in the main action. It is for the party seeking interim measures to prove that it cannot wait for the outcome of the main proceedings without suffering damage of that nature.

(see paras 27-33)

See: T-19/91 R Vichy v Commission [1991] ECR II-265, para. 19; T-24/93 R CMBT v Commission [1993] ECR II-543, para. 34; T-496/93 Allo v Commission [1995] ECRSC I-A-127 and II-405, para. 90; T-395/94 R II Atlantic Containerand Others v Commission [1995] ECR II-2893, para. 39; T-211/98 R Willeme v Commission [1999] ECRSC I-A-15 and II-57, para. 43; confirmed on appeal in C-65/99 P(R) Willeme v Commission [1999] ECR I-1857; T-300/01 R De Nicola v EIB [2002], not published in the ECR, para. 52; T-198/02 R N v Commission [2002] ECRSC I-A-145 and II-763, para. 50; T-236/02 R Marcuccio v Commission [2002] ECRSC I-A-181 and II-941, para. 35
In principle the issue of the admissibility of the main action should not be examined in relation to an application for interim measures so as not to prejudge the substance of the case. Nevertheless, where it is contended that the main action to which the application for interim measures relates is manifestly inadmissible, it may prove necessary to establish whether there are any grounds for concluding prima facie that the main action is admissible.

The urgency of an application for interim measures must be assessed in relation to the necessity for an interim order to prevent serious and irreparable damage to the party applying for those measures. It is for the party in question to prove that it cannot wait for the outcome of the main proceedings without suffering such damage. Although in order to establish the existence of serious and irreparable damage it is not necessary for the occurrence of the damage to be demonstrated with absolute certainty, it being sufficient to show that damage is foreseeable with a sufficient degree of probability, the applicants are none the less required to prove the facts forming the basis of their claim that serious and irreparable damage is likely.

Pecuniary loss, which a loss of customers is because it consists in a loss of earnings, cannot, save in exceptional circumstances, be regarded as irreparable or even as being reparable only with difficulty, if it can ultimately be the subject of financial compensation.

Pursuant to those principles, suspension of the operation of a measure would be justified only if it appeared that, without suspension, the applicants would be in a situation capable of threatening their very existence or of altering their market shares irretrievably.

(see paras 28-31)
Case T-15/02

BASF AG

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Intervention’

Order of the Court of First Instance (Fourth Chamber), 25 February 2003 II-215

Summary of the Order

Procedure — Intervention — Conditions for admissibility — Interest in the outcome of the dispute — Dispute concerning the annulment of a Commission decision finding an infringement of Article 81(1) EC — Dispute confined to the annulment or reduction of the fines imposed on the applicant — Decision imposing a fine on the applicant for leave to intervene no longer amenable to review — Absence of interest

(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 37, second para., and 46, first para.)

The concept of an interest in the result of the case, within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 37 of the Statute of the Court of Justice which, pursuant to the first paragraph of Article 46 of the Statute, is applicable to the procedure before the Court of First Instance, must be defined in the light of the precise subject-matter of the dispute and be understood as meaning a direct, existing interest in the ruling on the forms of order sought and not as an interest in relation to the pleas in law put forward. The expression ‘solution’ is to be understood as meaning the operative part of the final judgment which the parties ask the Court to deliver. In order to adjudicate on the admissibility of an application for leave to intervene, it is necessary, in particular, to ascertain whether the intervener is directly affected by the contested decision and whether his interest in the result of the case is established. In that context, it is necessary to distinguish between prospective interveners establishing a direct interest in the ruling on the specific act whose annulment is sought and those who can establish only an indirect interest in the result of the case by reason of similarities between their situation and that of one of the parties.

An applicant for leave to intervene does not have a direct, existing interest where, when the Commission has found that a number of undertakings infringed Article 81(1) EC, the subject-matter of the main action is confined to the annulment or reduction of the total amount of the fines imposed on the applicant, even though the applicant, by its action, seeks to call in question the Commission's assessment of the cooperation shown by the applicant for leave to intervene during the administrative procedure. Where the decision imposing a fine on the applicant for leave to intervene does not form the subject-matter of the main action and, moreover, has not formed the subject-matter of an action and is not amenable to appeal, a judgment annulling or varying the decision contested by the applicant would not in any way alter the decision adopted in respect of the applicant for leave to intervene and, by virtue of the case-law, the principle non bis in idem would preclude the Commission from undertaking a fresh assessment in depth of the commission of the infringement referred to in that decision.

(see paras 26-27, 32, 34-36)
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Actions for damages – Subject-matter – Claim for compensation for damage arising from a common position – Lack of jurisdiction of the Community judicature – No effective judicial remedy – Council declaration on the right to compensation – Not relevant – Power of the Community judicature to hear an action for compensation based on failure by the Council to observe the powers of the Community

(Arts 5 EU, 34 EU and 46 EU)

2. European Union – Police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters – Legal basis – Article 34 EU – Obligation to comply with Community provisions

(Art. 61(e) EC; Art. 34 EU; Council Common Position 2001/931/CFSP, Art. 4)

Summary

1. The Court of First Instance clearly has no jurisdiction to hear an action for damages seeking compensation for any damage which may have been caused by a common position based on Article 34 EU since, by virtue of Article 46 EU, no judicial remedy for compensation is available in the context of Title VI of the EU Treaty.

Even if that probably results in there being no effective judicial remedy, that situation cannot in itself give rise to Community jurisdiction in a legal system based on the principle of conferred powers, as follows from Article 5 EU.

The Council declaration on the right to compensation, recorded in the minutes of the meeting during which a common position was adopted, is also inoperative, because it finds no expression in the wording of the provision in question. Nor can that declaration refer to an action before the Community courts without contradicting the judicial system established by the EU Treaty.

By contrast, the Court of First Instance does have jurisdiction over such an action for damages in so far as the applicants allege failure to observe the powers of the Community. The Community courts have jurisdiction to review the content of an act adopted in the context of the EU Treaty in order to ascertain whether that act affects the powers of the Community.

(see paras 33-34, 36, 38-41)

2. Adoption of a common position by the Council could be unlawful for encroachment on the powers of the Community only if it were to take the place of a measure based on a provision of the EC Treaty the adoption of which was obligatory, alternatively to or accompanying the common position.

A common position providing for police and judicial assistance between Member States pursuant to Article 34 EU cannot be regarded as incompatible with the system of Community powers set out by the EC Treaty, since, irrespective of the question whether measures of that nature could be based on Article 308 EC, Article 61(e) EC explicitly states that the Council is to adopt measures in the field of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters in accordance with the provisions of the EU Treaty.

(see paras 45-46)
The requirement that a decision adversely affecting a person should state the reasons on which it is based is intended to provide the person concerned with sufficient details to allow him to ascertain whether or not the decision is well founded and make it possible for the decision to be the subject of judicial review.

As far as concerns decisions taken by a selection board in a competition, the obligation to state reasons must be reconciled with observance of the secrecy surrounding the proceedings of selection boards by virtue of Article 6 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations. That secrecy was introduced with a view to guaranteeing the independence of selection boards and the objectivity of their proceedings, by protecting them from all external interference and pressures, whether these come from the Community administration itself or the candidates concerned or third parties. Observance of this secrecy therefore precludes both disclosure of the attitudes adopted by individual members of selection boards and disclosure of any factors relating to individual or comparative assessments of candidates.

When the abilities of candidates are assessed, the selection board's proceedings are primarily comparative in character and are accordingly covered by the secrecy inherent in those proceedings. Therefore, having regard to the secrecy which must surround the proceedings of a selection board, communication of the marks obtained in the various tests constitutes an adequate statement of the reasons on which the board's decisions are based. Such a statement of reasons is not prejudicial to the rights of the unsuccessful candidates and enables the Court of First Instance to carry out a judicial review appropriate for that type of dispute.

(see paras 25-28)

See: 89/79 Bonu v Council [1980] ECR 553. para. 5; 195/80 Michel v Parliament [1981 ] ECR 2861. para. 22: C-254/95 P Parliament v Innamorati [1996] ECR I-3423. paras 23, 24. 28 and the case-law cited, and 32: T-167/99 and T-174/99 Giulietti and Others v Commission [2001] ECRSC I-A-93 and II-441. para. 81
Case T-321/02





Paul Vannieuwenhuyze-Morin

v

European Parliament and Council of the European Union





«(Action for annulment – Directive 2002/58/EC – Natural or legal persons – Capacity to bring proceedings – Inadmissibility)»

Order of the Court of First Instance (Fourth Chamber), 6 May 2003

Summary of the Order