Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Procedure — Costs — Taxation — Recoverable costs — Factors to be taken into consideration — Lawyers ' fees relating to negotiations between the parties following an interlocutory judgment — Whether included — Conditions — (Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Arts 73(b) and 74)

2. Procedure — Costs — Taxation — Recoverable costs — Involvement of many lawyers — Whether included — Conditions — Lawyers ' fees relating to coordination of the proceedings in joint cases — Excluded — (Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 73(b))

3. Procedure — Costs — Taxation — Recoverable costs — External advisors ' expenses — Whether included — Conditions — (Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 73(b))

4. Procedure — Costs — Taxation — Recoverable costs — Default or compensatory interest — Adjustment of nominal expenses in line with inflation — Excluded — (Rules of Procedure of Court of Justice, Art. 73(b))

Summary

1. Under Article 74 of its Rules of Procedure, the Court 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. Under Article 73(b) of the Rules of Procedure, expenses necessarily incurred by the parties for the purpose of the proceedings, in particular the travel and subsistence expenses and the remuneration of agents, advisers or lawyers are to be regarded as recoverable costs. It follows that recoverable costs are limited, first, to expenses incurred for the purposes of the proceedings before the Court of Justice and, secondly, to those expenses necessary for such purposes.

" Proceedings" under Article 73(b) of the Rules of Procedure refers only to proceedings before the Court, namely the contentious stage, and does not include any prior stage. Lawyers ' fees for periods during which no procedural documents were notified, lawyers ' fees relating to negotiations in order to arrive at an extra-judicial settlement and those relating to periods subsequent to the oral procedure before the Court must also be excluded as not necessarily incurred for the purposes of the proceedings.

However, fees relating to negotiations carried out by the parties with a view to coming to an agreement on the amount of damages payable as compensation cannot be excluded from the necessary expenses where the Court itself expressly requested the parties, in the operative part of an interlocutory judgment, to send to it, within a prescribed period from the date of delivery of that judgment, details of the amounts payable.

Lastly, since Community law does not provide for fee scales or rules relating to the length of time necessary for the work to be done, the Court must, in so far as notes of lawyers ' fees are to be taken into account, freely consider the circumstances of the case, having regard to the subject-matter and nature of the dispute and its significance from the point of view of Community law, as well as to the difficulties presented by the case, the amount of work generated by it for the agents or lawyers involved and the financial interest which the parties had in the proceedings.

see paras 41-43, 45, 47-49, 51

2. For the purpose of determining the remuneration of recoverable costs, while, in principle, the remuneration of only one agent, legal advisor or lawyer fee is recoverable, it is possible that, depending on the individual circumstances, and most importantly, the complexity of each case, the fees of a number of lawyers may be considered " necessary expenses" under Article 73(b) of the Rules of Procedure.

However, the lawyers ' fees relating to the coordination of the proceedings in question with those brought by an applicant in a joined case are not recoverable costs for the purposes of Article 73 of the Rules of Procedure. Such fees cannot be regarded as expenses incurred for the purpose of the proceedings in so far as that coordination was not ordered by the Court.

see paras 62, 64

3. For the purpose of determining recoverable costs, the expenses relating to the intervention of external advisors are " necessary expenses" within the meaning of Article 73(b) of the Rules of Procedure, in so far as they relate directly to the various pleadings submitted by the applicants.

see para. 78

4. Under the taxation of costs procedure, the right of applicants to the recovery of costs has its legal basis in the order fixing the sum. Consequently, applications for an award of default or compensatory interest calculated from a date prior to the date of that order must be dismissed.

As regards taxation of recoverable costs in an action for damages in which the judgment fixing the amounts to be paid as compensation to the applicants was not delivered until after an interlocutory judgment ordering the European Community to make good the damage, an application for adjustment in line with inflation of the nominal expenses of the proceedings for the period prior to the final judgment is to be regarded as an application for compensatory interest and must therefore be dismissed.

see para. 86