Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Procedure – Costs – Taxation – Recoverable costs – Definition – Costs incurred by the parties during the stage preceding the bringing of proceedings – Not included

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

2. Procedure – Costs – Taxation – Elements to be taken into consideration

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

3. Procedure – Costs – Taxation – Elements to be taken into consideration – Examination of a new and important point of law

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

4. Procedure – Costs – Taxation – Elements to be taken into consideration – Points already raised during the administrative procedure – Cooperation between the applicants

5. Procedure – Costs – Taxation – Recoverable costs – Expenses necessarily incurred by the parties – Costs of sending pleadings – Conditions

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Arts 43(6), 91(b), and 102(2))

Summary

1. It is apparent from Article 91(b) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance that recoverable costs are limited, first, to those incurred for the purposes of the proceedings before the Court of First Instance and, second, to those necessary for those purposes.

Costs charged by applicants for meetings with the services of the Commission after the decision contested in the main proceedings was adopted and before proceedings were brought must be regarded as irrecoverable costs. By ‘proceedings’, Article 91 of the Rules of Procedure refers only to the proceedings before the Court of First Instance, to the exclusion of the stage preceding those proceedings, irrespective of the fact that the aim of a meeting with the services of the Commission may have been to avoid bringing proceedings before the Court.

(see paras 21-22)

2. 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. When ruling on an application for taxation of costs, the Court of First Instance is not obliged to take account of any national scale of lawyers’ fees or any agreement in that regard between the party concerned and his agents or advisers.

In the absence of Community provisions laying down fee-scales, the Community judicature must make an unfettered assessment of 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 proceedings for the agents and advisers involved and the financial interests which the parties had in the proceedings.

(see paras 23-24)

3. As regards the purpose and nature of the proceedings in the main action and their significance from the point of view of Community law, the examination of a new and important question of law which was not mentioned during the administrative procedure before the Commission and which is related to matters in respect of which the Commission developed and published its new policy when the proceedings in the main action were under way may justify the intervention of highly specialised lawyers working many hours at very high hourly rates and the fact that the applicants are represented by a number of lawyers.

(see para. 26)

4. As regards the volume of work carried out in the context of the main proceedings, the Community judicature may take account of the fact that some of the pleas raised by the applicants have already been the subject of an exchange of views during the administrative procedure before the Commission, and that the lawyers of those parties must therefore have been very familiar with the matters raised owing to their participation in that other procedure.

The Community judicature may also take into account the fact that the applicants have worked together in preparing the application and other pleadings, lodging them jointly, not by separate documents, even where each of the applicants was represented by different lawyers and no formal agreement for sharing tasks has been concluded between them, and may thus take the view that bringing the action jointly must have reduced the time devoted, inter alia, to the preparation and drafting of the pleadings by the lawyers of each of the applicants. However, the Community judicature may also take into account that, by cooperating in that way, the applicants have significantly reduced the costs, in terms of work, of the defendant, and, moreover, also of the Community judicature.

(see paras 29-30)

5. In determining whether the costs of sending pleadings and other documents to the Court were necessary, the Court of First Instance takes account, first, of the existence of other safe and manifestly less expensive means of sending documents, secondly, of the fact that Article 102(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance provides for an extension of time-limits on account of distance in order to allow more conventional and less expensive means to be used, and, lastly, of the fact that Article 43(6) of the Rules of Procedure provides that pleadings may be lodged by modern means of communication, inter alia by fax, provided that the signed original is lodged no later than 10 days thereafter.

(see para. 34)