ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Actions for annulment — Action against a decision to take no further action on a complaint in a competition matter — Complaint that the Commission failed to express a view on one of the aspects of the complaint — Omission falling within the scope of an action for failure to act — Action devoid of purpose in relation to that complaint — (Arts 230 EC and 232 EC)

2. Actions for annulment — Actionable measures — Commission ' s refusal to issue instructions to a Member State or adopt a decision concerning compliance with the competition rules by public undertakings — Excluded save in exceptional circumstances — (Arts 86(3) EC and 230, fourth para., EC)

Summary

1. Where, in its decision to take no further action on a complaint in competition matters, it is claimed that the Commission failed to express a view on one of the aspects of that complaint, such failure cannot be held unlawful in the context of a review of legality under Article 230 EC.

If, on reading the decision to take no further action, the complainant considers that the Commission has failed to express a view on that aspect of the complaint, the onus is on the complainant to request the Commission to express a view and, if necessary, to bring an action under the second paragraph of Article 232 EC for a declaration by the Community judicature that the Commission has failed to act.

see paras 71, 79-80

2. It is apparent from Article 86(3) EC and from Article 86 as a whole that the supervisory power which the Commission enjoys vis-à-vis Member States responsible for infringing the rules of the Treaty, in particular those relating to competition, necessarily implies the exercise of a wide discretion by the Commission as regards, in particular, the action which it considers necessary to be taken. Consequently, the exercise of the Commission ' s power to assess the compatibility of State measures with the Treaty rules is not coupled with an obligation on the part of the Commission to take action.

It follows that legal or natural persons who request the Commission to take action under Article 86(3) EC do not, in principle, have the right to bring an action against a Commission decision not to use the powers which it has under that article. However, one cannot rule out a priori the possibility that an individual may find himself in an exceptional situation conferring on him standing to bring proceedings against a refusal by the Commission to adopt a decision in the context of its supervisory functions under Article 86(1) and (3) EC. In that respect, the mere existence of a competitive relationship with the undertaking to which the exclusive rights referred to in the complaint addressed to the Commission were granted does not constitute an exceptional situation such as to confer on its author standing to bring proceedings.

see paras 86-90
Keywords

Subject of the case

Operative part



Keywords

Non-contractual liability – Conditions – Sufficiently serious breach of a rule of law conferring rights on individuals – No discretion for the institution – Mere infringement of Community law sufficient (Art. 288, second para., EC) (see paras 81-85)

2. Actions for damages – World Trade Organisation – Not possible to rely on the WTO Agreements in order to contest the lawfulness of a Community act – Exceptions – Community measure intended to implement a WTO Agreement or expressly and specifically referring thereto – Community regime governing the import of bananas – Incompatibility with the WTO rules established by the Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO – Judicial review of the lawfulness of that regime under the WTO rules – Excluded (Art. 288, second para., EC; Council Regulations Nos 404/93 and 1637/98; Commission Regulation No 2362/98) (see paras 107, 110-112)

3. Non-contractual liability – Conditions – No unlawful conduct on the part of the Community institutions – Real damage, causal link and unusual and special damage – Cumulative requirements (Art. 288, second para., EC) (see para. 152)

4. Non-contractual liability – Conditions – Retention of a Community banana import regime incompatible with the WTO Agreements – Damage arising from the adoption of a retaliatory measure by the United States authorities – Causal link (Art. 288, second para., EC) (see paras 170-171, 176-178, 182)

5. Non-contractual liability – Conditions – No unlawful conduct on the part of the Community institutions – Damage arising from the incompatibility of the Community regime governing the import of bananas with the WTO Agreements – Unusual damage – None – Liability of the Community – Excluded (Art. 288, second para., EC) (see paras 189-190, 192, 197, 199)

Subject of the case

Re:

ACTION for compensation in respect of the damage allegedly caused by the levying by the United States of America of increased customs duty on imports of the applicant’s folding boxes made of printed paperboard, as authorised by the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), following a finding that the Community regime governing the import of bananas was incompatible with the agreements and understandings annexed to the Agreement establishing the WTO.

Operative part

Operative part

The Court:

1. Dismisses the action;

2. Orders the applicant to bear, in addition to its own costs, the costs incurred by the Council and the Commission.
Case T-340/00





Comunità montana della Valnerina

v

Commission of the European Communities





«(EAGGF – Withdrawal of financial assistance – Article 24 of Regulation (EEC) No 4253/88 – Principles of proportionality and legal certainty – Statement of reasons – Right to be heard)»

Judgment of the Court of First Instance (Third Chamber), 13 March 2003

Summary of the Judgment

1.. Economic and social cohesion – Structural assistance – Community funding – Decision to grant EAGGF financial assistance – Several parties responsible for implementation of the project – No express provision in the decision identifying the party responsible for repayment of the assistance in the event of irregularities – Demand for repayment of the assistance in full addressed to the party described as the beneficiary – Breach of the principle of proportionality

(Council Regulation No 4256/88)

2.. Economic and social cohesion – Structural assistance – Community funding for national projects – Applicants for, and beneficiaries of, EAGGF financial assistance required to provide information and to act in good faith



3.. Community law – Principles – Proportionality – Financial assistance granted by the EAGGF withdrawn owing to the recipients' non-compliance with the financial conditions for the investment laid down in the decisions granting the assistance – Infringement – None

(Council Regulation No 4253/88, Art. 24(2))

1.

2.

3.
Case T-52/00





Coe Clerici Logistics SpA

v

Commission of the European Communities





«(Competition – Complaint – Articles 82 EC and 86 EC – Admissibility – Port services)»

Judgment of the Court of First Instance (Fifth Chamber), 17 June 2003

Summary of the Judgment

1.. Actions for annulment – Action against a decision to take no further action on a complaint in a competition matter – Complaint that the Commission failed to express a view on one of the aspects of the complaint – Omission falling within the scope of an action for failure to act – Action devoid of purpose in relation to that complaint

(Arts 230 EC and 232 EC)

2.. Actions for annulment – Actionable measures – Commission's refusal to issue instructions to a Member State or adopt a decision concerning compliance with the competition rules by public undertakings – Excluded save in exceptional circumstances

(Arts 86(3) EC and 230, fourth para., EC)

1.

2.
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fourth Chamber)

16 May 2002

Case T-17/01

Georgis Rounis

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Officials — Transfer of part of remuneration in the currency of a Member State other than the country where the institution has its seat — Article 17(2)(a) and (b) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations — Combined application’

Full text in French II-301

Application for:

first, annulment of the Commission's decision of 24 February 2000 limiting transfer of the applicant's emoluments to the United Kingdom to 19% of his net monthly remuneration and of conclusion No 102/84 of the Group of Heads of Administration relating to the transfer of the emoluments of officials and resident agents and, second, damages for the material harm allegedly suffered.

Held:

The Commission's decision of 24 February 2000 limiting the transfer of the applicant's emoluments to the United Kingdom to 19% of his monthly remuneration is annulled. The Commission is ordered to make good the damage suffered by the applicant as the result of the decision of 24 February 2000, together with interest for late payment at the annual rate of 5.25% until payment is made. The parties are to send to the Court of First Instance, within five months of the date of delivery of the present judgment, the amounts to be paid, as established by common accord. Failing agreement, the parties are to submit to the Court, within that same time-limit, the figures they propose. The decision on costs is reserved.

Summary
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Single Judge)

11 July 2002

Case T-263/01

Petros Mavromichalis

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Officials — Prior administrative complaint — Implied rejection — Classification in grade and step — Statement of grounds’

Full text in Greek II-731

Application for:

annulment of the Commission's decision of 15 December 2000 appointing the applicant and classifying him in Grade A 5, step 1, with effect from 16 December 2000.

Held:

The Commission's decision of 15 December 2000 classifying the applicant in Grade A 5, step 1, is annulled with effect from 16 December 2000. The Commission is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary
The principle of res judicata extends only to matters of fact and law actually or necessarily settled by the judicial decision in question.

In an action based on Article 178 of the EC Treaty (now Article 235 EC) in conjunction with Article 215 of the Treaty (now the second paragraph of Article 288 EC), the applicant has to prove that the damage relied on is a sufficiently direct consequence of the conduct of the concerned institution in respect of which the complaint is made.

(see para. 32)
Case T-247/01

eCopy, Inc

v

Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) (OHIM)

‛Community Trade Mark — ECOPY — Misuse of powers — Distinctive character acquired through use after the date of filing — Article 7(3) of Regulation (EC) No 40/94’

Judgment of the Court of First Instance (Fourth Chamber), 12 December 2002 II-5304

Summary of the Judgment

Community trade mark — Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark — Absolute grounds for refusal — Marks devoid of any distinctive character — Exception — Acquisition through use — Examination by the Office — Limited to the facts and evidence relied on by the trade mark applicant

Community trade mark — Definition and acquisition of the Community trade mark — Absolute grounds for refusal — Marks devoid of any distinctive character — Exception — Acquisition through use — Requirement of acquisition before the date of filing of the trade mark application

Article 7(3) of Regulation No 40/94 on the Community trade mark must be interpreted as meaning that a mark must have become distinctive through use before the application was filed. Accordingly, it is irrelevant that the mark may have acquired distinctiveness through use after the application was filed but before the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) in the person of the examiner or, where appropriate, the Board of Appeal, has determined whether there are any absolute grounds for refusing registration of the mark. It follows that the Office may not have regard to evidence of use that occurred after the date of filing. (see para. 36)

The legality of a decision of the Board of Appeal of the Office of Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) cannot be called into question by pleading new facts before the Court of First Instance unless it is proved that the Board of Appeal should have taken those facts into account of its own motion during the administrative procedure before adopting any decision in the matter. First of all, it is clear from a combined reading of subparagraphs (2) and (3) of Article 63 of Regulation No 40/94 on the Community trade mark that decisions of the Boards of Appeal may be annulled or altered only where they contain a substantive or procedural irregularity and, secondly, the legality of a Community measure falls to be assessed on the basis of the elements of fact and of law existing at the time when the measure was adopted. (see para. 46)
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Second Chamber)

9 April 2003

Case T-155/01

Robert Walton

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Temporary staff — Dismissal for unsatisfactory performance of duties — Action for annulment and for compensation for dismissal’

Full text in English II-595

Application for:

principally for annulment of the letter of 3 October 2000, whereby the Commission terminated the applicant's employment as a member of the temporary staff, and for compensation for breach of his contract of employment.

Held:

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

Summary

Officials — Actions — Act adversely affecting an official — Definition — Letter terminating the contract of a member of the temporary staff — Contract already terminated by a prior act of the member of staff concerned — Precluded (Staff Regulations, Arts 90(2) and 91(1); Conditions of Employment of other Servants, Art. 46) Procedure — Application — Requirements as to form — Summary of the pleas in law on which it is based (EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art, 19; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 44(1) (c))
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (SINGLE JUDGE)

5 March 2003

Case T-293/01

Donatella Ineichein

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Temporary staff — Daily subsistence allowance — Place of recruitment — Evidence’

Full text in French II-441

Application for:

first, annulment of the decision of the Commission of 29 January 2001 fixing the applicant's place of recruitment at Brussels and refusing to grant her the daily subsistence allowance and, secondly, for an order requiring the Commission to pay the applicant the amounts corresponding to her entitlement stemming from her place of recruitment being fixed at Rome.

Held:

The application is dismissed. The parties are ordered to bear their own costs.

Summary

Failure to comply with the obligation set out in Article 43(4) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, which states that ‘to every pleading there shall be annexed a file containing the documents relied on in support of it, together with a schedule listing them’t, may result in an action being inadmissible where that failure is such as to inconvenience the other parties in the preparation of their arguments. In the case of an action brought on the basis of Articles 90 and 91 of the Staff Regulations, the Commission cannot rely on such inconvenience where the documents were annexed to the preliminary administrative complaint submitted by the applicant. (see paras 31-33) See: 95/74 to 98/74. 15/75 and 100/75 Coopératives agricoles de céréales v Commission and Council [1975] ECR 1615. para. 4: C-82/01 P Aéroports de Paris v Commission [2002] ECR I-9297. para. 11

The term ‘complaint’t, used in Article 46(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, which provides that the defence must be accompanied by the complaint, must be understood to mean both the text of the complaint and, where appropriate, its annexes, where they were not attached to the originating application. (see para. 34)
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Own resources of the European Communities — Post-clearance recovery of import or export duties — Conditions under Article 220(2)(b) of Regulation No 2913/92 for the waiver of import duties — Whether error detectable by the trader — Criteria for assessment — Proportionality principle — (Council Regulation No 2913/92, Art. 220(2)(b))

Summary

Concerning the second of the cumulative conditions, laid down by Article 220(2)(b) of Regulation No 2913/92 establishing the Community Customs Code, which have to be met for the competent authorities to be able to waive subsequent accounting for import duties, according to which condition the error by the competent customs authorities must be of such a kind that it could not reasonably have been detected by a taxable person acting in good faith, the question whether such an error was detectable must be determined having regard to the nature of the error, the professional experience of the traders concerned and the degree of care which they exercised.

The nature of the error is to be determined in the light of the complexity or otherwise of the rules concerned and the period of time during which the authorities persisted in their error. As regards the professional experience of the trader concerned, it needs to be determined whether he is a professional economic trader, whose business essentially consists in import and export operations and whether he already had some experience of trading in the goods in question. As regards the degree of care shown by the trader concerned, the latter is under a duty, as soon as he himself has doubts as to the need for an import licence in order to benefit from a preferential tariff quota, to make enquiries and seek the greatest clarification possible in order to ascertain whether or not those doubts are well founded. On that point, such a trader must ascertain the Community law applicable to the transactions which he undertakes by reading the relevant issues of the Official Journal. As from the date of their publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities , the applicable Community tariff provisions constitute the sole relevant positive law on the matter and all persons are deemed to be aware of them; a customs tariff manual drawn up by the national authorities, by contrast, is merely a guide for customs operations, with purely indicative value.

Where the conditions for applying Article 220(2)(b) of that regulation are not met, the fact that action for post-clearance recovery of customs duties is taken does not constitute an infringement of the proportionality principle.

see paras 55, 61-62, 69, 73, 75, 87
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fourth Chamber)

25 June 2003

Case T-72/01

Norman Pyres

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Officials — Internal competition — Exclusion from the oral test’

Full text in French II-861

Application for:

annulment of the decision of the selection board in competition COM/TA/99 excluding the applicant from the oral test in the competition and of all subsequent operations and acts in the competition and, additionally, a claim for damages for the loss allegedly suffered by the applicant.

Held:

The application is dismissed. The parties are ordered to bear their own costs.

Summary

The secrecy surrounding the proceedings of selection boards in competitions was introduced by Article 6 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations 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. That being so, the obligation to state the reasons for decisions of a selection board must take account of the nature of the proceedings concerned. The task of a selection board involves as a rule at least two separate stages, the first being an examination of the applications in order to select the candidates admitted to the competition and the second being an examination of the abilities of the candidates for the posts to be filled in order to draw up a list of suitable candidates. The second stage of the selection board's proceedings, unlike the first, is primarily comparative in character and is accordingly covered by the secrecy inherent in those proceedings. The comparative assessments made by the selection board are reflected in the marks it allocates to the candidates, which are the expression of the value judgments made concerning each of them. Having regard to the secrecy which must surround the proceedings of a selection board, therefore, communication of the marks obtained by each candidate in the various tests constitutes an adequate statement of the reasons on which the board's decisions are based. (see paras 63-66) See: C-254/95 Parliament v Innamorati [1996] ECR I-3423, paras 24, 25, 30 and 31; 44/71 Marcato v Commission [1972] ECR 427, para. 20; 37/72 Marcato v Commission [1973] ECR 361, para.. 19; 31/75 Costacurta v Commission [1973] ECR 1563, para. 28; T-157/96 Affatato v Commission [1998] ECRSC I-A-41 and II-97, paras 33 to 35
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Competition — Agreements, decisions and concerted practices — Agreements between undertakings — Meaning — Joint intention to adopt conduct in the market — Anti-competitive request by a manufacturer to its dealers who are party to a dealership agreement which complies with competition law — Excluded in the absence of proof of acquiescence by the dealers — (Art. 81(1) EC)

Summary

The concept of " agreement" within the meaning of Article 81(1) EC centres around the existence of a joint intention between at least two parties, with the result that a decision of an undertaking which constitutes unilateral conduct escapes the prohibition in that article, unless it receives at least the tacit acquiescence of another undertaking.

The Commission cannot therefore hold that apparently unilateral conduct on the part of a manufacturer, adopted in the context of the contractual relations which it maintains with its dealers, in reality forms the basis of an agreement between undertakings within the meaning of Article 81(1) EC if the Commission does not establish the existence of an acquiescence, express or implied, on the part of the dealers, in the attitude adopted by the manufacturer.

In that regard, while it can be envisaged that a contractual variation of a dealership agreement which complies with the competition rules could be regarded as having been accepted by the dealers in advance, upon and by the signature of that agreement, where it is a lawful contractual variation which is foreseen by that agreement, or is a variation which, having regard to commercial usage or legislation, the dealer could not refuse, it cannot, by contrast, be accepted that an unlawful contractual variation of a like dealership agreement, such as a request by the manufacturer to its dealers to cease giving discounts, could be regarded as having been accepted in advance, upon and by the signature of that lawful agreement. In the latter case, acquiescence in the unlawful contractual variation desired by the manufacturer can occur only after the dealers have become aware of that variation.

see paras 30-36, 45