ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

1. Procedure ° Costs ° Taxation ° Factors to be taken into consideration

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 91(b))

2. Procedure ° Costs ° Taxation ° Recoverable costs ° Concept ° Fees owed to an official' s lawyer for services rendered at the pre-litigation stage of the procedure ° Excluded

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 91(b))

Summary

1. The Community judicature is not empowered to tax the fees payable by the parties to their own lawyers but it may determine the amount of those fees which may be recovered from the party ordered to pay the costs. It is, therefore, not obliged to take account of any national scales of lawyers' fees or any agreement in relation to fees.

Since Community law does not contain any provisions laying down a scale of fees, the Court must consider all the facts of the case, taking into account the purpose and nature of the proceedings, their significance from the point of view of Community law, as well as the difficulties presented by the case, the amount of work generated by the dispute for the lawyer involved and the financial interest which the parties had in the proceedings.

2. Even if, in a dispute between an official and his institution, the course of the pre-litigation procedure may sometimes render it appropriate for a lawyer to be employed, the fees due for the services provided at that stage, which necessarily serve to reduce accordingly the lawyer' s volume of work during the litigation stage, do not constitute recoverable costs.
Keywords



Keywords

++++

Officials - Actions - Action for damages brought without the pre-litigation procedure in accordance with the Staff Regulations - Inadmissibility

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)
Keywords



Keywords

++++

1. Procedure ° Intervention ° Disclosure of pleadings to interveners ° Exception ° Confidentiality ° Conditions

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 37, second para; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 115 et seq.)

2. Applications for interim measures ° Suspension of operation of a measure ° Insufficient information before the Court ° Parties called on to produce information ° Suspension granted pending an order bringing the proceedings on the application for interim measures to an end

(EEC Treaty, Art. 185; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104)
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

1. Procedure ° Intervention ° Persons having an interest ° Case concerning the validity of a decision applying the competition rules ° Action for the annulment of a decision exempting a system of selective distribution for de luxe cosmetics ° Undertaking in competition with the undertaking to which the decision was addressed and in whose favour an exemption has also been granted ° Indirect interest in the result of the case ° Inadmissibility

(EEC Treaty, Art. 85(3); EEC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 37, second para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 115)

2. Procedure ° Intervention ° Persons having an interest ° Case concerning the validity of a decision applying the competition rules ° Associations of undertakings which did not take part in the preliminary administrative procedure ° Admissibility ° Conditions ° Not transposable to individual economic operators

(EEC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 37, second para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 115)

Summary

1. In the context of an action for the annulment of a decision applying the competition rules which grants an exemption under Article 85(3) of the Treaty for a system of selective distribution for de luxe cosmetics, leave cannot be granted for the intervention of an undertaking in competition with the undertaking to which the contested decision was addressed, whose interest lies in the defence of its own position in the context of another exemption decision addressed to it which, although comparable to, is none the less different from, the decision in issue in the case in which it seeks to intervene.

In that context, an interest in the result of a case within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 37 of the Statute of the Court of Justice means an interest in the decision on the claims relating specifically to the act whose annulment is sought, and not an indirect interest by reason of similarity of situation.

2. The practice of the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance in allowing an association of undertakings, if it has not taken part in the preliminary administrative procedure, to intervene in a case concerning the validity of such a decision if

(i) it represents an appreciable number of undertakings active in the sector concerned,

(ii) its objects include that of protecting its members' interests,

(iii) the case may raise questions of principle affecting the functioning of the sector concerned and

(iv) the interests of its members may therefore be affected to an appreciable extent by the forthcoming judgment,

cannot be transposed to an application to intervene made by an economic operator acting individually.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

Procedure ° Application originating proceedings ° Lodging of certificate of entitlement to practise by the applicant' s lawyer ° Failure to produce certificate within the time prescribed for putting the application in order ° Failure to observe essential procedural requirement ° Inadmissibility

(EEC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 17; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 44(3) and (6))

Summary

The reason for the requirement that the lawyer acting for a party lodge at the Registry a certificate of entitlement to practise before a court of a Member State, which is laid down by Article 44(3) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, and which is one of the conditions for the regularity of the application, is to enable the Community court to check compliance with Article 17 of the EEC Statute of the Court of Justice, pursuant to which parties other than Member States must be represented by a lawyer entitled to practise before a court of a Member State. This requirement therefore constitutes an essential procedural requirement, failure to observe which within the time prescribed for the party concerned to put his application in order renders it inadmissible.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

1. Actions for annulment of measures ° Natural or legal persons ° Measures of direct and individual concern to them ° Regulation extending eligibility under the suckler-cow premium system to a new category of producers

(EEC Treaty, Art. 173, second para.; Council Regulation No 125/93)

2. Actions for annulment of measures ° Natural or legal persons ° Measures of direct and individual concern to them ° Trade association defending the general interests of a category of operators ° Inadmissibility

(EEC Treaty, Art. 173, second para.)

Summary

1. The fact that it is possible to determine the number or even the identity of the persons to whom a measure applies at any given time is not sufficient to call into question the legislative nature of the measure, as long as it is established that it applies to them by virtue of an objective legal or factual situation defined by the measure in question in relation to its purpose. In order for a measure to be regarded as of individual concern, within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty, to persons seeking its annulment, it must affect their legal position because of a factual situation which differentiates them from all other persons and distinguishes them individually in the same way as in the case of a person addressed.

A regulation extending eligibility under the system of premiums for maintaining suckler cows to small and medium-sized milk producers with an individual reference quantity greater than 60 000 kg of milk but not greater than 120 000 kg and who keep suckler cows applies to objectively defined situations and affects the legal position of persons referred to in general and abstract terms. It therefore concerns such milk producers only in their objective capacity as economic operators in the beef and veal sector, in the same way as any other economic operator in the same situation.

2. It is not possible to accept the principle that an association, in its capacity as representative of a category of operators, is individually concerned by a measure affecting the general interests of that category.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

1. Action for annulment ° Measures against which actions may be brought ° Measures of the European Council ° Declaration concerning the entry into force of the Treaty on European Union ° Excluded

(EC Treaty, Art. 173, first para.; Single European Act, Art. 31)

2. Action for annulment ° Measures against which actions may be brought ° Treaty on European Union ° Excluded

(EC Treaty, Arts 4 and 173, first para.)

Summary

1. Acts of the European Council are not mentioned by the first paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty among those whose legality may be reviewed by the Community judicature. Article 31 of the Single European Act expressly excludes the application to the European Council of the provisions of the Treaty concerning the jurisdiction of the Community judicature and that exclusion is maintained by Article L of the Treaty on European Union. It follows that the Community judicature is not competent to review the legality of the European Council' s declaration concerning the entry into force of the Treaty on European Union.

2. The Treaty on European Union is not an act of a Community institution within the meaning of Articles 4 and 173 of the Treaty and, consequently, the Court of First Instance has no jurisdiction to examine the legality of its provisions.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

1. Procedure ° Costs ° Recoverable costs ° Concept ° Expenses necessarily incurred by the parties ° Expenses of lawyers acting for Community institutions or bodies

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 91(b))

2. Procedure ° Costs ° Taxation ° Recoverable costs ° Concept ° Matters to be taken into consideration

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 91(b))

Summary

1. Where, in proceedings before the Court, a Community institution or body makes use of the possibility afforded to it by the first paragraph of Article 17 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the EEC to be assisted by a lawyer, that lawyer' s remuneration constitutes expenses necessarily incurred for the purpose of the proceedings within the meaning of Article 91(b) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance.

2. The Court is not empowered under Article 91 of its Rules of Procedure to tax the fees payable by the parties to their own lawyers, but it may determine the amount of those fees which may be recovered from the party ordered to pay the costs. It follows that the Court is not obliged to take into account any national scales of lawyers' fees or any agreement in relation to fees concluded between the party concerned and his agents or advisers.

Since Community law does not contain any provisions laying down a scale of fees, the Court of First Instance must consider all the facts of the case, taking into account the purpose and nature of the proceedings, their significance from the point of view of Community law, as well as the difficulties presented by the case, the amount of work generated by the dispute for the agents and advisers involved and the financial interest which the parties had in the proceedings.

Since, in fixing the recoverable costs, the Court takes account of all the circumstances of the case up to the time of its decision, there is no need for it to rule separately on the costs incurred by the parties for the purposes of the proceedings on the taxation of costs.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

Application for interim measures ° Conditions for granting ° Serious and irreparable damage ° Balancing of all the interests involved ° Application for suspension or postponement of elections of representatives of officials to a staff committee

(EC Treaty, Art. 186; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104(2))

Summary

The judge hearing an application for interim measures must assess the urgency of adopting the measures applied for by examining whether implementation of the contested act before a decision is made on the substance is capable of causing the party making the application irreversible damage which could not be remedied, even if the contested decision were annulled by the Court. The measures applied for, albeit temporary, must not be disproportionate to the defendant' s interest in having the acts implemented, even where they form the subject-matter of an action.

An application for the interim suspension or postponement of elections of the representatives of officials to a staff committee must be allowed where it appears that a number of decisions of the electoral office, the legality of which is disputed, have had the effect of preventing the applicant from standing in the elections, thereby threatening him with serious and irreparable damage.

The interests of those involved may best be reconciled by reopening the electoral procedure, with the possibility of submitting new nominations, rather than merely suspending it. The latter course would leave the outgoing staff committee in office until the end of the main proceedings, thereby depriving officials of the right to elect new representatives and making it difficult for the bodies representing officials to function, in so far as the nature of the powers of a committee remaining in office in those circumstances is controversial.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

1. Actions for annulment of measures ° Natural or legal persons ° Measures of direct and individual concern to them ° Provision setting up the language regime for the single procedural system for obtaining a Community trade mark ° Services of a trade mark agent ° Inadmissibility

(EC Treaty, Art. 173, fourth para.; Council Regulation No 40/94, Art. 115)

2. Procedure ° Criteria for the admissibility of actions ° Permissible in the light of the right of every person to a fair hearing

(European Convention on Human Rights, Art. 6)

Summary

1. Article 115 of Council Regulation No 40/94 on the Community trade mark, which sets up the language regime for the single procedural system established by that regulation for obtaining a Community trade mark, produces legal effects with respect to a category of persons envisaged in the abstract, namely persons seeking to obtain a Community trade mark on their own behalf or on behalf of their principals.

An application for annulment of that regulation is therefore not admissible if it is brought by a natural person affected by the contested measure solely in his or her objective capacity as a trade mark agent, in the same way as any other trade mark agent who is, or might be in the future, in the same situation with regard to the language used until now in his or her professional activity.

2. The principle, embodied in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and recognized in the Community legal order, that all persons are entitled to a fair hearing cannot preclude certain criteria regarding admissibility from being set for the institution of judicial proceedings.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

++++

Application for interim measures ° Suspension of operation ° Suspension of operation of a decision imposing a fine ° Conditions for granting ° Provision of a guarantee ° Whether permissible ° Limits ° Exceptional circumstances

(EC Treaty, Art. 185; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104(2))

Summary

The judge hearing an application for interim measures may order suspension of the obligation on the applicant undertaking to provide a bank guarantee ensuring payment of the fine imposed on it only if there are exceptional circumstances. Such circumstances may, in particular, result from the fact that the undertaking cannot possibly provide the necessary guarantee, that it risks being wound-up by court order or that the grounds of challenge put forward in the main application against the decision imposing the fine raise immediately particularly serious doubts as to the legality of that decision.

With regard to the difficulties experienced by the applicant, by reason of its financial position, in obtaining from a bank the guarantee required by the Commission, those difficulties cannot be regarded as insurmountable on the sole ground that the grant of the bank guarantee is subject to the involvement of other companies in the group to which the applicant belongs, in the absence of evidence that those companies are economically or legally prevented from providing the necessary support.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Actions for annulment - Natural or legal persons - Measures of direct and individual concern to them - Regulation introducing a fixed date for the determination of the rate of conversion into national currency of the premium for tobacco from harvests prior to 1993

(EC Treaty, Art. 173, fourth para., and Art. 189; Commission Regulation No 3477/93, Art. 5, Art. 6, first indent, and Art. 7, second para.)

Summary

An action for annulment brought by tobacco processing undertakings established in Greece challenging Article 5, Article 6, first indent, and Article 7, second paragraph, of Regulation No 3477/93 concerning the agricultural conversion rates to be applied in the tobacco sector is inadmissible in so far as the said provisions provide that, in the case of tobacco from harvests prior to 1993 leaving the place in which it was under supervision on 1 July 1993 or later, the rate to be applied for the conversion into national currency of the premium for leaf tobacco is the rate applicable on 1 July 1993.

On the one hand, the regulation appears to be a measure having general application, within the meaning of Article 189 of the Treaty. It applies to objectively determined situations and produces legal effects with respect to categories of persons envisaged generally and in the abstract, namely all traders active in the tobacco sector who, within the Community, have brought under supervision tobacco from harvests prior to the 1993 harvest and whose tobacco had not been removed from supervision by 1 July 1993.

On the other hand, whilst, in certain circumstances, even a legislative measure which applies to the traders concerned in general may be of individual concern to some of them provided that it affects them by reason of certain attributes which are peculiar to them or by reason of circumstances in which they are differentiated from all other persons, that is not so in the present case.

Specifically, the fact that the number or even the identities of the persons to whom a measure applies at any given time may be ascertained more or less precisely is not sufficient to call into question the general application, and thus the legislative nature, of that measure and by no means implies that it must be regarded as being of individual concern to those persons as long as it is established that the measure is applicable as a result of an objective legal or factual situation which the measure defines with reference to its purpose.

In this connection, the traders concerned form a mixed group comprised of purchasers and producers of tobacco established in seven Member States, giving seven distinct relationships between the ecu and national currency. The fact that the provisions at issue may have different material effects for the various persons to whom they apply, namely traders established in a country with a less stable currency, such as Greece, or traders established in a country with a strong currency, is not in itself inconsistent with their legislative nature if that situation is objectively determined.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Procedure - ECSC - File forwarded by an institution to the Community court pursuant to Article 23 of the ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice - Right of access - Access to internal documents

(ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 23)

Summary

The purpose of Article 23 of the ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice, concerning the forwarding by a Community institution to the Community court of the documents relating to a case pending before it, is to enable the Court to exercise its power of review of the legality of the contested decision, having regard to the rights of the defence, and not to guarantee all the parties unconditional and unrestricted access to the administrative file.

It is necessary to distinguish the documents relating to the case, transmitted pursuant to Article 23 of the ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice, which remain wholly extraneous to the proceedings and are not taken into consideration by the Court of First Instance in deciding the case, from the case-file, which is constituted in accordance with Article 5(1) of the Instructions to the Registrar of the Court of First Instance and to which the parties have access under the conditions laid down in Article 5(3) of those Instructions.

Internal documents concerning the administrative procedure and the preparation of a Commission decision relating to the application of the Treaty competition rules are to be placed in the case-file, and thus communicated to the applicant, only exceptionally, if they appear prima facie to contain relevant elements of proof tending to corroborate evidence already advanced by it or if they are necessary to enable the Court to verify of its own motion, should the need arise, that the Commission is not in breach of its obligations under the Treaty. That restriction on access to internal documents is justified by the need to ensure the proper functioning of the Commission when dealing with infringements of the Treaty competition rules.

The Court of First Instance exercises its power of review only with respect to the final administrative act, and not the draft or preparatory documents relating to it.
Order of the Court of First Instance (First Chamber, extended composition) of 30 October 1998. - Fort James France, formerly Kaysersberg SA v Commission of the European Communities. - Taxation of costs. - Case T-290/94 (92).



European Court reports 1998 Page II-04105



Summary



Keywords

1 Procedure - Costs - Taxation - Factors to be taken into account

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 92(1))

2 Procedure - Costs - Taxation - Recoverable costs - Concept - Participation of a number of lawyers

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 91(b))

Summary

1 In the absence of Community provisions laying down fee scales, the Community judicature must, for the purposes of the taxation of costs, assess in its discretion the relevant features of the case, taking into account the purpose and nature of the proceedings, their significance from the point of view of Community law, as well as the difficulties presented by the case, the amount of work generated by the case for the agents or advisers involved and the financial interest which the parties had in the proceedings.

In that connection, the ability of the Community judicature to assess the value of the work done by a lawyer depends on the preciseness of the information provided.

2 Although, in principle, only the remuneration of a single lawyer may be regarded as falling within the concept of `expenses necessarily incurred' within the meaning of Article 91(b) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, the primary consideration is none the less the total number of hours of work which may appear to be objectively necessary for the purpose of the proceedings before the Court, irrespective of the number of lawyers who may have provided the services in question.