ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
In proceedings for failure to fulfil obligations, it is for the Commission to prove the existence of the alleged infringement and to provide the Court with the information necessary for it to determine whether there has indeed been an infringement, and the Commission may not rely on any presumption for that purpose.

In addition, with regard, in particular, to a complaint concerning the implementation of a national provision, proof of a Member State’s failure to fulfil its obligations requires production of evidence different from that usually taken into account in an action for failure to fulfil obligations concerning solely the terms of a national provision and, in those circumstances, failure to fulfil obligations can be established only by means of sufficiently documented and detailed proof of the alleged practice of the national administration for which the Member State concerned is answerable.

In respect of an action concerning the application of the provisions of Directive 2003/88, concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time, to the organisation of working time of doctors in training in the Member State concerned and, more particularly, to the question of the existence, in relation to Ireland, of practice by the national authorities contrary to Articles 3, 5, 6 and 17(2) and (5) of that directive, the Commission not having proved the existence of such a practice, the action must be dismissed.

(see paras 22, 23, 51, 52)
Article 9(1) of Directive 2006/112 on the common system of value added tax must be interpreted as meaning that bodies governed by public law cannot be regarded as taxable persons for the purposes of value added tax in so far as they do not satisfy the criterion of independence set out in that provision.

Municipal budgetary entities which carry out the economic activities which are entrusted to them in the name and on behalf of a municipality, which do not bear liability for damage caused by those activities — that liability being borne solely by that municipality — and which do not bear the economic risk associated with carrying out those activities since they do not own their own property, do not generate their own earnings and do not bear the costs of those activities — any earnings generated being assigned to the budget of the municipality and expenses being directly attributed to the budget of that municipality — do not satisfy the criterion of independence for the purposes of Article 9(1) of Directive 2006/112 and therefore cannot be regarded as taxable persons.

(see paras 37, 38, 42, operative part)
Article 2(b) of Directive 93/13 on unfair terms in consumer contracts must be interpreted as meaning that a natural person who practises as a lawyer and concludes a credit agreement with a bank, in which the purpose of the credit is not specified, may be regarded as a ‘consumer’ within the meaning of that provision, where that agreement is not linked to that lawyer’s profession. The fact that the debt arising out of the same contract is secured by a mortgage taken out by that person in his capacity as representative of his law firm and involving goods intended for the exercise of that person’s profession, such as a building belonging to that firm, is not relevant in that regard.

As the tenth recital in the preamble to Directive 93/13 states, uniform rules of law in the matter of unfair terms should apply to all contracts concluded between ‘consumers’ and ‘sellers or suppliers’, terms defined in Article 2(b) and (c) of that directive. It is therefore by reference to the capacity of the contracting parties, according to whether or not they are acting for purposes relating to their trade, business or profession, that the directive defines the contracts to which it applies.

As for the concept of ‘consumer’, within the meaning of Article 2(b) of Directive 93/13, it is objective in nature and is distinct from the concrete knowledge the person in question may have, or from the information that person actually has. A national court before which an action relating to a contract which may be covered by that directive has been brought is required to determine, taking into account all the evidence and in particular the terms of that contract, whether the purchaser may be categorised as a consumer within the meaning of that directive. In order to do that, the national court must take into account all the circumstances of the case, particularly the nature of the goods or service covered by the contract in question, capable of showing the purpose for which those goods or that service is being acquired.

In that regard, a lawyer who concludes, with a natural or legal person acting for purposes relating to his trade, business or profession, a contract which, particularly as it does not relate to the activity of his firm, is not linked to the exercise of the lawyer’s profession, is, vis-à-vis that person, in a weaker position. Furthermore, the fact that a lawyer displays a high level of technical knowledge does not give grounds to assume that he is not a weak party compared with a seller or supplier.

(see paras 15, 17, 21-23, 26, 27, 30, operative part)
Case C‑78/14 P

European Commission

v

ANKO AE Antiprosopeion, Emporiou kai Viomichanias

‛Appeal — Arbitration clause — Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007-2013) — Contracts relating to EU financial support granted to the Perform and Oasis projects — Irregularities identified during audits of other projects — Decision of the Commission to suspend reimbursement of the amounts advanced by the recipient — Eligible costs — Distortions of the documents on the file’

Summary — Judgment of the Court (First Chamber), 29 October 2015

Appeal — Grounds — Review by the Court of the assessment of the facts and evidence — Possible only where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted — Ground of appeal alleging distortion of the clear sense of the evidence — Material inaccuracy of findings of fact not resulting from documents in the case — Inadmissibility (Art. 256 TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 169(2)) Appeal — Grounds — Challenge to the interpretation of a contractual provision which is unrelated to a provision of EU law — Inadmissibility (Art. 256 TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 169)
Article 4 of Regulation No 1346/2000 on insolvency proceedings must be interpreted as meaning that an action directed against the managing director of a company established under the law of a Member State, forming the subject of insolvency proceedings opened in another Member State, brought before a court of that latter Member State by the liquidator of that company and seeking, on the basis of a national provision of that latter Member State, reimbursement of payments made by that managing director before the opening of the insolvency proceedings but after the date on which the insolvency of that company was established, falls within its scope.

A national provision, under which the managing director of an insolvent company must reimburse the payments which he made on behalf of that company after it became insolvent, must be regarded as being covered by the law applicable to insolvency proceedings and their effects, within the meaning of Article 4(1) of that regulation. Furthermore, such a provision contributes to the attainment of an objective which is intrinsically linked, mutatis mutandis, to all insolvency proceedings, namely the prevention of any reduction of the assets of the insolvent estate before the insolvency proceedings are opened, so that the claims of all the company’s creditors may be satisfied on equal terms.

(see paras 16, 17, 20, 21, operative part 1)
Consequently, as regards contributions in respect of the supply of electricity and gas included in invoices addressed to EU institutions, such contributions must be considered to be indirect taxes falling within the scope of the second paragraph of Article 3 of the protocol, even if, in accordance with the national legislation at issue, the EU institutions have not been designated as the persons liable for those contributions.

It does not follow from the wording of the second paragraph of Article 3 of the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union that the EU must be specified by the national legislation as the person liable for indirect taxes in order for the immunity provided for in that provision to apply. That provision requires only that such indirect taxes be included in the price of movable or immovable property and that the price includes such taxes. Similarly, a condition requiring the indirect tax at issue to be passed on to the EU institutions does not appear in the wording of the second paragraph of Article 3 of the protocol.

Two conditions must be satisfied for an indirect tax, such as contributions in respect of the supply of electricity and gas, to be considered as amounting to mere remuneration for public utility services within the meaning of the third paragraph of Article 3 of the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union. According to the first of those conditions, such services must be provided, or at least be capable of being provided, to those who have to pay such an indirect tax. According to the second condition, there must be a direct and proportional link between the actual cost of that service and the tax paid by the recipient. Those two conditions are cumulative.

In that regard, if the contributions paid by the EU institutions also serve the purpose of financing public service tasks from which those institutions are incapable of benefiting, on that basis alone, the first condition is not satisfied and, also, with regard to the second condition, there is no direct and proportional link between the amount of the contested contributions and the actual cost of the public services provided for by the applicable national legislation. In addition, there is no such link even with regard to public service tasks from which the EU institutions are capable of benefiting where it is not possible to establish from the applicable national legislation the extent to which the EU institutions can benefit from the public services at issue.

(see paras 66, 70, 71, 73)
1.

Declares that, by failing to adopt, for each of the landfill sites at issue, namely those in Urtuella (Basque Country) and in Zurita and Juan Grande (Canary Islands), the measures necessary to request the operator to prepare a conditioning plan and ensure full implementation of that plan in accordance with the requirements of Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste, with the exception of those listed in Annex I, point 1, of that directive, within eight years after the date laid down in Article 18(1) of that directive, the Kingdom of Spain has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 14(c) of that directive in relation to each of those landfill sites;
Articles 47(2) and 48(3) of Directive 2004/18 on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts must be interpreted as precluding a contracting authority, in the tender specifications relating to the award of a public contract, from imposing on a tenderer which relies on the capacities of other entities the obligation, before the contract is awarded, to conclude a cooperation agreement with those entities or to form a partnership with them.

In the context of the verification by the contracting authority of the tenderer’s suitability to perform a particular contract, Articles 47(2) and 48(3) of Directive 2004/18 do not make it possible either to assume that a tenderer has or has not the means necessary to perform the contract or, a fortiori, to exclude a priori certain types of proof. It follows that the tenderer is free to choose, on one hand, the legal nature of the links it intends to establish with the other entities on whose capacities it relies in order to perform a particular contract and, on the other, the type of proof of the existence of those links. Furthermore, by expressly providing that it is only by way of example that the production of an undertaking by other entities to make available to the tenderer the resources necessary for the performance of the contract is acceptable proof of the fact that it actually has those resources, Articles 47(2) and 48(3) of Directive 2004/18 by no means preclude the tenderer from establishing in another way the existence of the links between it and other entities on whose capacities it relies for the proper performance of the contract.

(see paras 26-29, 34, operative part)
The first indent of Article 17(2)(a) of Directive 86/653 on the coordination of the laws of the Member States relating to self-employed commercial agents must be interpreted as meaning that customers brought in by the commercial agent for the goods that he has been assigned by the principal to sell must be regarded as new customers, within the meaning of that provision, in the case where, even though those customers already had business relations with that principal in relation to other goods, the sale, by that agent, of the first goods required the establishment of specific business relations, this being a matter for the referring court to determine.

By taking into account the objectives pursued by Directive 86/653 which seek, inter alia, to protect the commercial agent in his relations with the principal, and the particular importance of Article 17 of that directive in that regard, it is necessary to interpret the wording of Article 17(2) in a manner which contributes to that protection of the commercial agent and which therefore takes full account of the merits of the latter in carrying out the transactions assigned to him. The concept of ‘new customers’, within the meaning of that provision, may not therefore be construed restrictively.

Consequently, it is in relation to the goods in respect of which the commercial agent is assigned by the principal to negotiate and, if applicable, to conclude the sale or purchase that it is necessary to determine whether a customer is new or existing within the meaning of Article 17(2) of Directive 86/653.

Thus, in a situation in which, in compliance with the terms of the commercial agency contract, the commercial agent is assigned to negotiate the sale of a portion of the principal’s range of goods and not all of that range, the fact that a person already maintained business relations with the principal in respect of other goods does not exclude that person from being regarded as a new customer brought in by that commercial agent when the latter has managed, through his efforts, to initiate business relations between that person and the principal for the goods which the agent has been assigned to sell.

Furthermore, the fact that the principal entrusted a commercial agent with the marketing of new goods to customers with whom the principal already maintained certain business relations may indicate that those goods relate to a different portion of the range to that which those customers had purchased up to that point and that the sale of those new goods to the latter customers would require that commercial agent to set up specific business relations, this, however, being a matter for the referring court to determine.

(see paras 32-35, 39, 43, operative part)
Article 198(2) of Directive 2006/112 on the common system of value added tax must be interpreted as applying to the supply of ingots consisting of a random, rough alloy obtained from the fusion of scrap and various metal objects containing gold, and other metals, materials and substances, and which, depending on the ingot, have a gold content of approximately 500 or 600 thousandths.

What increases the risk of tax evasion, and therefore justifies the use of a reverse charge mechanism for the supply of certain goods, including gold, is their high market value in relation to their size, which makes them easily transportable. As regards the trade in gold, and provided that it does not concern a finished product, such as a jewel, it is the gold content of the object concerned which determines its value. Consequently, the risk of tax evasion is all the greater given that the gold content of that object is high.

It follows therefore that, in the light of the principal objective pursued by the EU legislature, the degree of purity of the gold in the object concerned is crucial for the purposes of determining whether or not a supply of gold material or semi-manufactured products, not being a finished product, falls within the scope of Article 198(2) of Directive 2006/112.

Furthermore, it must be held that adopting an interpretation of Article 198(2) of that directive, to the effect that that provision, once implemented by a Member State, would, nevertheless, not apply to ingots with a purity in gold of 325 thousandths or greater, could interfere with the full achievement of that objective of countering tax evasion specifically pursued by the EU legislature in view of the particularities of a precious metal such as gold. On the other hand, the foregoing does not prejudge the question whether ingots made up of ‘waste’ or ‘used material’, where they have a purity in gold of less than 325 thousandths, may come under the reverse charge mechanism provided for in Article 199(1)(d) of that directive, as long as that mechanism has been put in place by a Member State.

In that regard, nothing in Directive 2006/112 indicates that the reverse charge mechanism provided for in Article 199(1)(d) of that directive is necessarily exclusive of the one provided for in Article 198(2), since the latter provision may, in that regard, be conceived as being a lex specialis relating to the specific products covered by its terms.

(see paras 38, 41-43, 45, operative part)
Case C‑287/14

Eurospeed Ltd

v

Szegedi Törvényszék

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Gyulai törvényszék)

‛Reference for a preliminary ruling — Road transport — Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 — Driver’s liability for infringements of the obligation to use a tachograph’

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Sixth Chamber), 9 June 2016

Transport — Road transport — Social provisions — Regulation No 561/2006 — National legislation under which the driver is liable for an infringement of that regulation instead of or in addition to the transport undertaking employing him — Lawfulness

(European Parliament and Council Regulation No 561/2006)

Regulation No 561/2006 on the harmonisation of certain social legislation relating to road transport and amending Regulations No 3821/85 and No 2135/98 and repealing Regulation No 3820/85 must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation which, instead of or in addition to the transport undertaking employing the driver, holds the driver liable for infringements of that regulation which he has himself committed.

In the first place, Article 19(2) of that regulation provides that a Member State is to enable the competent authorities to impose a penalty on an undertaking and/or a driver for an infringement of the regulation detected on its territory for which a penalty has not already been imposed. It is therefore clear from the wording of that provision that Regulation No 561/2006 makes both transport undertakings and drivers subject to specific obligations and holds them both liable for infringements of their respective obligations. Moreover, in accordance with the first sentence of Article 19(2) of the regulation, that possibility of imposing penalties for infringements of the regulation extends to infringements committed outside the territory of the Member State concerned.

The same conclusions follow, in the second place, from Article 10(3) of that regulation.

Finally, while Regulation No 561/2006 does indeed aim to improve the working conditions of employees in the road transport sector, there is no reason to suppose that the European Union legislature intended to free drivers from all liability for the infringements they commit, in particular where the infringements relate exclusively to the performance of their work. In addition, the two objectives of the regulation, namely improving working conditions and improving road safety, are both reflected in the obligation in principle to fit vehicles used in road transport with approved recording equipment making it possible to monitor compliance with drivers’ driving times and rest periods. An interpretation of that regulation as excluding the possibility of imposing penalties on drivers to punish infringements by them of their obligations under the regulation would obstruct the achievement of the objective of improving road safety generally.

(see paras 31-33, 37-39, 41, operative part)
Article 101(1) TFEU must be interpreted as meaning that an undertaking may, in principle, be held liable for a concerted practice on account of the acts of an independent service provider supplying it with services only if one of the following conditions is met:

— the service provider was in fact acting under the direction or control of the undertaking concerned, or

— that undertaking was aware of the anti-competitive objectives pursued by its competitors and the service provider and intended to contribute to them by its own conduct, or

— that undertaking could reasonably have foreseen the anti-competitive acts of its competitors and the service provider and was prepared to accept the risk which they entailed.

First, where a service provider offers, in return for payment, services on a given market on an independent basis, that provider must be regarded, for the purpose of applying rules aimed at penalising anti-competitive conduct, as a separate undertaking from those to which it provides services and the acts of such a provider cannot automatically be attributed to one of those undertakings.

Second, as regards the first of those conditions, an undertaking could be liable for the acts of a service provider which presents itself as independent but which is in fact acting under the direction or control of that undertaking. That would be the case in circumstances in which the service provider had only little or no autonomy or flexibility with regard to the way in which the activity concerned was carried out, its notional independence disguising an employment relationship. Furthermore, such direction or control might be inferred from the existence of particular organisational, economic and legal links between the service provider in question and the user of the services, just as with the relationship between parent companies and their subsidiaries.

As regards the second of those conditions, whilst it is true that it is met when that undertaking intended, through the intermediary of its service provider, to disclose commercially sensitive information to its competitors, or when it expressly or tacitly consented to the provider sharing that commercially sensitive information with them, the condition is not met when that service provider has, without informing the undertaking using its services, used the undertaking’s commercially sensitive information to complete those competitors’ tenders.

Finally, as regards the third condition, the concerted practice may also be attributed to the undertaking using those services if the latter could reasonably have foreseen that the service provider retained by it would share its commercial information with its competitors and if it was prepared to accept the risk which that entailed.

(see paras 25, 27, 30, 31, 33, operative part)