6.

It is not quite so easy to assess the arguments put forward in relation to the alleged breach of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectation, which has likewise been pursued. (a) Doubtless it may be said of some of the arguments that they really relate to the lawfulness of the measures adopted by the Commission and thus no longer require to be considered. That applies in my opinion to the view that when the Commission interferes with existing contracts and such action cannot be expected — as in the present case in view of the quantities imported in previous years — it is bound to adopt transitional rules and wrongly neglected to do so when it adopted the protective measures in the spring of 1979. It also applies to the complaint that the Commission did not have regard to that requirement when subsequently adjusting its protective measures because it refused to draft them so that it would have been possible for the applicant to import the remaining quantities for which it was under contract. The wording of the application makes it clear that questions of the lawfulness of the measures adopted are involved, for there is reference to disregard of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectation when the protective measures were adopted (p. 29) and it is stressed (p. 30) that the applicant's expectations were disappointed a second time by the subsequent amending regulations. (b) The same must also apply in so far as the applicant claimed at the hearing, with reference to the protection of legitimate expectation, that it relied on the Commission's assurance that only goods already in transit would be allowed to be imported, an assurance which the Commission is alleged to have disregarded when it adopted the second amendine regulation. Should, however, the argument be understood at least in part to mean the Commission ought not by its answer to the applicant's telex messages have caused the applicant to adopt a particular course of conduct, namely to cancel its contracts, but ought to have intimated that the import embargo might not yet be final and that goods shipped after 12 April 1979 might yet be imported, then doubt would immediately arise as to whether the claim for compensation could in fact be justified in such a way. When the Commission replied to the telex messages which the applicant sent at the beginning of April 1979 it assumed — and no other view was possible for it, having regard to the particulars supplied by the Chilean Government — that the quantities which were leaving Chile on 12 April 1979 would exhaust the quota which could be contemplated for Chile. Any reservation as proposed by the applicant would not therefore have been appropriate and so its absence cannot be regarded as a wrongful omission. Moreover, it is difficult to see what the applicant could have gained from a vague hint at the mere possibility that further quantities would be allowed. That would probably not have kept the applicant from cancelling the contracts and so prevented the occurrence of the damage which that action led to. (c) Finally, with regard to a third point relating to the alleged breach of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectation, it must indeed be conceded that it does not concern the validity of the protective measures adopted and is thus not to be excluded from consideration in the present proceedings, although, as is apparent from mv opinion in Case 112/80 ([1981] ECR at.p- 1135), it has already been discussed in the proceedings on the reference for a preliminary ruling. I am referring to the applicant's claim that it was possible for the Commission to make initial estimates of the harvest as early as October 1978 and that initial inquiries about the expected imports also took place at that time; I also have in mind the related complaint that the Commission made no mention of the intended protective measures either at the sessions of the Advisory Committee for Fruit in January and February 1979 or at a meeting in March 1979 between representatives of the Commission and the importers concerned. However, it is clear that even with the help of the argument to the effect that if the Commission had provided information in time it could have saved the applicant from entering into contracts for the purchase of apples and the charter of a vessel and thus have prevented the ensuing consequences, a claim for compensation for the alleged damage — of which only a part could be based on that argument — is without foundation. After what the applicant has itself stated (I refer to the application, in which it is stated that the contract of sale and the charterparty were made in October and November 1978 respectively, and to the telex message of 12 April 1979, where it was said that those contracts were made in December 1978 and January 1979) it is obvious that statements of the Commission at meetings of the Management Committee for Fruit in January and February 1979 would already have been too late. Yet the Commission cannot be reproached for not mentioning the possible adoption of protective measures in October 1978. It is more plausible that a reliable judgment, as is necessary in many respects for the adoption of protective measures such as under Regulation No 2707/72, was possible only in March 1979 when there was a clear picture of the market situation in the Community (storage levels, market returns and price trends). The Commission, however, did not thereafter wrongfully delay the adoption of protective measures.