ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
Order of the Court of 26 November 1999. - Radiotelevisione italiana Spa (RAI). - Reference for a preliminary ruling: Corte dei Conti - Italy. - Article 177 of the EC Treaty (now Article 234 EC) - Definition of "court or tribunal of a Member State" - Community rules concerning public procurement. - Case C-440/98.



European Court reports 1999 Page I-08597



Summary



Keywords

Preliminary rulings - Reference to the Court - Court or tribunal of a Member State within the meaning of Article 177 of the Treaty (now Article 234 EC) - Meaning - To be determined on the basis of the body's constitution and role - Role of the Corte dei Conti (Italian Court of Auditors), in the context within which reference was made to the Court, consisting in the evaluation and verification of the results of administrative action - Not a judicial function

(EC Treaty, Art. 177 (now Art. 234 EC))

Summary

$$The question whether a body may refer a question to the Court falls to be determined on the basis of criteria relating both to the constitution of that body and to its function. Thus, a national body may be classified as `a court or tribunal' within the meaning of Article 177 of the Treaty when it is performing judicial functions, but when exercising other functions - of an administrative nature, for example - it cannot be recognised as such.

It follows that in order to establish whether a national body, entrusted by law with different categories of function, is to be regarded as a court or tribunal within the meaning of Article 177 of the Treaty, it is necessary to determine in what specific capacity it is acting within the particular legal context in which it seeks a ruling from the Court. For the purposes of that analysis, no relevance is to be attributed to the fact that, when otherwise configured, the body concerned falls to be classified as a court or tribunal for the purposes of Article 177 of the Treaty (even the same entity whose status is in issue, when it is exercising powers other than those in the context of which the reference was made).

The Corte dei Conti (Court of Auditors) is not performing a judicial function - and cannot therefore make a reference to the Court of Justice - when, in the context in which reference was made, it is exercising its powers of ex post facto review which is an administrative role consisting in the evaluation and verification of the results of administrative action.
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Actions for annulment - Judgment granting annulment - Effects - Obligation to adopt implementing measures - Scope - Account to be taken of both the grounds and operative part of the judgment

(EC Treaty, Art. 176 (now Art. 233 EC))

2. Officials - Individual decision - Effects - Delay in notification - Effects

(Staff Regulations, Art. 25, second subpara.)

Summary

1. Pursuant to Article 176 of the Treaty (now Article 233 EC), in order to comply with a judgment granting annulment and to give it full effect, the institution which issued the annulled measure is required to have regard not only to the operative part of the judgment but also to the grounds which led to the judgment and constitute its essential basis, in so far as they are necessary to determine the exact meaning of what is stated in the operative part. It is those grounds which, on the one hand, identify the precise provision held to be illegal and, on the other, indicate the specific reasons which underlie the finding of illegality contained in the operative part and which the institution concerned must take into account when replacing the annulled measure. The procedure for replacing such a measure may thus be resumed at the very point at which the illegality occurred.

( see paras 19-20 )

2. A delay in the notification of an individual decision to the person concerned cannot entail the annulment of that decision, since its notification is an act subsequent to the decision and therefore has no influence on its content.

( see para. 46 )
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1 Applications for interim measures - Procedure - Whether it is desirable to hear oral argument from the parties - Discretion of the court hearing an application for interim relief

(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 36, first para., and 46, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 105)

2 Applications for interim measures - Suspension of operation of a measure - Conditions for granting - Urgency - Circumstances in which the non-material damage cannot be remedied more satisfactorily by means of interim relief than by a ruling on the substance - No urgency

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

Summary

1 The question whether it is desirable to hear oral argument from the parties falls within the discretion of the court hearing an application for interim relief.

2 If the suspension sought cannot better remedy the purported non-material damage than the ruling on the substance, the condition concerning urgency is not satisfied. The purpose of proceedings for interim relief is not to ensure reparation for damage but rather to ensure that the ruling on the substance has full effect.
Keywords



Keywords

Preliminary rulings - Withdrawal by the national court of the questions referred to the Court - Removal from the register

(Art. 234 EC)
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Appeals Pleas in law Incorrect assessment of the facts Mere repetition of the pleas in law and arguments put forward before the Court of First Instance Failure to identify the error of law made by the Court of First Instance Inadmissible

(Art. 225 EC; EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 112(1)(c))

Summary

$$It follows from Article 225 EC, the first paragraph of Article 51 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 112(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure that an appeal may be based only on grounds relating to the infringement of rules of law, to the exclusion of any appraisal of the facts. The Court of First Instance has exclusive jurisdiction, first, to establish the facts except where the substantive inaccuracy of its findings is apparent from the documents submitted to it and, second, to assess those facts.

It also follows from those provisions that an appeal must indicate precisely the contested elements of the order which the appellant seeks to have set aside, and the legal arguments specifically advanced in support of the appeal. That requirement is not satisfied by an appeal which, without even including an argument specifically identifying the error of law allegedly vitiating the contested order, simply repeats or reproduces verbatim the pleas in law and arguments already put forward before the Court of First Instance, including those which were based on facts expressly rejected by that Court. Such an appeal amounts in reality to no more than a request for re-examination of the application submitted to the Court of First Instance, which the Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction to undertake.

( see paras 36-37 )
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Preliminary rulings - Reference to the Court - National court or tribunal within the meaning of Article 234 EC - Definition - Landesgericht acting in its capacity as an authority responsible for keeping the commercial register and not giving judgment in any dispute - Excluded

(Art. 234 EC)

Summary

$$It follows from Article 234 EC that a national court may refer a question to the Court only if there is a case pending before it and if it is called upon to give judgment in proceedings intended to lead to a decision of a judicial nature.

The Landesgericht Salzburg (Austria) may not, therefore, make a reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court in its capacity as an authority responsible for keeping the commercial register in a case concerning an entry in that register, where there is nothing to indicate that there is a dispute pending before it, since the Landesgericht is the first authority to have before it the application for entry in the commercial register, which has not given rise to any decision in respect of which an application for review has been made to the Landesgericht.

( see paras 17, 20-21 )
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Appeals - Pleas in law - Admissibility - Conditions - Submission of arguments also raised before the Court of First Instance - No effect

(Art. 225 EC; EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 112(1)(c))

2. Actions for annulment - Natural or legal persons - Measures of direct and individual concern to them - Question whether there is an absolute bar to proceeding - Seriousness of the infringement by the institution concerned - No effect - Breach of the principle of institutional balance - No effect

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC)

Summary

1. Under Article 225 EC and the first paragraph of Article 51 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice, an appeal must clearly indicate the contested points of the order of which annulment is sought and the legal arguments on which that claim is specifically based. That requirement is not satisfied by an appeal which, without even setting out arguments specifically intended to identify the alleged error in law by which the contested order is vitiated, confines itself to reproducing the pleas and arguments already put to the Court of First Instance.

An appeal can, however, be based on arguments which have already been presented at first instance in order to show that, by dismissing the pleas in law and arguments presented to it by the appellant, the Court of First Instance infringed Community law, so that the points of law examined at first instance may be considered again in an appeal provided that the appellant contests the way in which the Court of First Instance interpreted or applied Community law.

( see paras 30-31 )

2. Whether an application brought by a natural or legal person against a decision of a Community institution not addressed to that person is inadmissible because the decision is not of direct and individual concern to that person, as provided in the fourth paragraph of Article 230 EC, is a point of admissibility involving public policy considerations which the Community judicature may examine at any time, even of its own motion. The seriousness of the alleged infringement by the institution concerned or the extent of its adverse impact on the observance of fundamental rights could not, in any event, give rise to non-application of the rules for admissibility expressly laid down by the Treaty.

Moreover, although the balance of powers that characterises the institutional structure of the Community constitutes a fundamental guarantee granted by the Treaty in particular to the undertakings and associations of undertakings to which it applies, that statement cannot be interpreted as providing a remedy for any natural or legal person who considers that an act of a Community institution has been adopted in breach of the principle of institutional balance, regardless of whether the act in question is of direct and individual concern to that person.

( see paras 39-41 )
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Actions for damages - Limitation period - Starting point

(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para. (now Art. 288, second para., EC); EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 43; EAEC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 44)

2. Actions for damages - Limitation period - Interruption - Conditions - Action for damages or request for measures of inquiry before a national court - Excluded

(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para. (now Art. 288, second para., EC); EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 43 and 46, first para.; EAEC Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 44 and 47, first para.)

Summary

$$1. It is apparent from the second paragraph of Article 215 of the Treaty (now the second paragraph of Article 288 EC) and from Article 44 of the EAEC Statute of the Court of Justice, the latter provision being worded in the same terms as Article 43 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice, that non-contractual liability on the part of the Community and the assertion of the right to compensation for damage suffered are subject to a number of conditions relating to the existence of an unlawful act on the part of the Community institutions, actual damage and a causal link between them. It follows that the period of limitation which applies to proceedings in matters arising from non-contractual liability cannot begin to run before all the requirements governing an obligation to make reparation are satisfied and in particular before the damage to be made good has materialised.

( see paras 29-30 )

2. Quite apart from the fact that Article 43 of the EC Statute and Article 44 of the EAEC Statute of the Court of Justice refer only to interruption of the limitation period, it is clear from the very wording of those provisions that they require, in the two situations for which they provide, an application before the Court of Justice or the Court of First Instance, before which those provisions are applicable by virtue of the first paragraph of Article 46 and the first paragraph of Article 47 of those Statutes respectively. By contrast, neither a similar action brought before a national court, namely an application for damages, nor a request for measures of inquiry, such as a request for the appointment of an expert, nor even a request for protective measures brought before a national court can have that effect of interruption.

( see para. 56 )
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Approximation of laws — Review procedures relating to the award of public supply and public works contracts — Directive 89/665 — Interim measures — Consideration of chances of success of the substantive claim by the body responsible for review procedures — Permissibility — Conditions — (Council Directive 89/665, Art. 2)

Summary

Article 2 of Directive 89/665 on the coordination of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the application of review procedures to the award of public supply and public works contracts as amended by Directive 92/50 relating to the coordination of procedures for the award of public service contracts must be interpreted as meaning that it does not preclude the Member States from providing that, when a body responsible for review procedures for the award of public contracts decides an application for interim measures, it is bound or authorised to take account of the prospects of success of an application for a decision of a contracting authority to be set aside on the ground that it is unlawful, so long as the national rules thus governing the adoption of those interim measures are not less favourable than those governing similar domestic actions and do not make it practically impossible or excessively difficult to exercise the rights conferred by Community law.

see para. 33, operative part
Case C-297/01





Sicilcassa SpA

v

IRA Costruzioni SpA and Others

and

Francesco Gaetano Restivo Graci and Others

v

IRA Costruzioni SpA and Others







(Reference for a preliminary ruling fromthe Tribunale di Catania)

«(State aid – Articles 87 EC and 88 EC – New aid – Absence of prior notification – Aid incompatible with the common market – Withdrawal of aid – Transitional arrangements maintaining the effects of the withdrawn aid)»

Order of the Court (Fifth Chamber), 24 July 2003 I - 0000

Summary of the Order

1.. State aid – Commission expressly declining to require recovery of aid which is incompatible with the common market – Assessment of the need none the less to require recovery in light of the absence of notification by the Member State concerned – Jurisdiction of the national courts

(Art. 88 EC)

2.. State aid – New State aid scheme – Definition – Transitional rules maintaining the effects of a scheme which is itself new – Whether covered

(Arts 87 EC and 88 EC)

3.. Preliminary rulings – Jurisdiction of the Court – Limits – Assessment as to whether a particular grant of aid is compatible with the common market – Excluded

(Arts 88 EC and 234 EC)

1.

2.

3.
Case C-232/02 P(R)

Commission of the European Communities

v

Technische Glaswerke Ilmenau GmbH

‛Appeal — Order of the President of the Court of First Instance in interlocutory proceedings — State aid — Obligation to recover aid — Suspension of operation’

Order of the President of the Court, 18 October 2002 I-8980

Summary of the Order

The fact that an undertaking in receipt of State aid recovery of which has been ordered by the Commission may seek a remedy in the national court against national measures enforcing that decision cannot lead to an amendment of the rule set out in Article 104(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, according to which the sole condition for an application to suspend the operation of a measure adopted by an institution to be admissible is that the applicant must be challenging that measure in proceedings before the Court of First Instance. Nor can it lead to a refusal to grant such an undertaking, which has in fact brought an action for annulment in the Court of First Instance against the Commission's decision, interim judicial protection before the Community judicature. (see paras 32-33)

The application of particularly strict criteria for acknowledging, when an application for suspension of operation of a Commission decision ordering the recovery of State aid for restructuring is being examined, that there is a prima facie case, on the ground that the condition of urgency, because of the aid beneficiary's insolvency problems, is always satisfied, is not justified. The fact that an undertaking may become insolvent does not necessarily mean that the urgency must be accepted because, when assessing an undertaking's viability, the judge hearing the application for interim relief may assess its material circumstances by taking into consideration the characteristics of the group to which it is linked by way of its shareholders. Furthermore, although it is true that suspension of the operation of a decision ordering recovery of incompatible aid may prolong the adverse effects of that aid on competition, the fact remains, conversely, that the immediate implementation of such a decision will usually give rise to irreversible effects for the beneficiary undertaking, without its being possible a priori to exclude the possibility that continuance of the aid will finally be judged lawful owing to the defects which the aforementioned decision may contain. Lastly, an approach based on particularly strict criteria might reduce interim judicial protection to an excessive extent and limit the broad discretion which the judge hearing an application for interim relief must have in order to exercise the powers conferred on him. (see paras 54, 56, 58-59)
Keywords

Summary



Keywords

Social policy – Equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security – Directive 79/7 – Permitted derogation in respect of the determination of statutory pensionable age – Scope – Limitation exclusively to forms of discrimination necessarily and objectively linked to the difference in retirement age – Different method of calculating retirement pensions – Reduction of the amount for early retirement – Whether permissible

(Council Directive 79/7, Arts 4(1) and 7(1)(a)))

Summary

Article 4(1) of Directive 79/7, on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security, read in conjunction with Article 7(1)(a) of the directive, must be interpreted as meaning that where the national regulations of a Member State have retained a difference in retirement ages between men and women, it does not preclude that Member State, in circumstances such as those of the main proceedings, from calculating the amount of the retirement pension differently according to the sex of the worker or from applying in the case of men, who alone are entitled to claim a retirement pension in advance in the five years before the normal retirement age, a reduction of 5% for each year by which the pension is drawn early.

(see para. 47, operative part)
Case C-172/02

Robert Bourgard

v

Insitut national d’assurances sociales pour travailleurs indépendants (Inasti)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Cour de cassation (Belgium))

(Article 104(3) of the Rules of Procedure – Social policy – Equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security – Directive 79/7/EEC – Self-employed workers – Permitted derogation in respect of the determination of pensionable age – Men’s entitlement to claim an early retirement pension – Limitation exclusively to forms of discrimination necessarily and objectively linked to the difference in retirement ages – Method of calculation – Early retirement reduction)

Summary of the Order

Social policy – Equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security – Directive 79/7 – Permitted derogation in respect of the determination of statutory pensionable age – Scope – Limitation exclusively to forms of discrimination necessarily and objectively linked to the difference in retirement age – Different method of calculating retirement pensions – Reduction of the amount for early retirement – Whether permissible

(Council Directive 79/7, Arts 4(1) and 7(1)(a)))

Article 4(1) of Directive 79/7, on the progressive implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security, read in conjunction with Article 7(1)(a) of the directive, must be interpreted as meaning that where the national regulations of a Member State have retained a difference in retirement ages between men and women, it does not preclude that Member State, in circumstances such as those of the main proceedings, from calculating the amount of the retirement pension differently according to the sex of the worker or from applying in the case of men, who alone are entitled to claim a retirement pension in advance in the five years before the normal retirement age, a reduction of 5% for each year by which the pension is drawn early.

(see para. 47, operative part)
Case C-258/02 P





Bactria Industriehygiene-Service Verwaltungs GmbH

v

Commission of the European Communities





«(Appeal – Regulation (EC) No 1896/2000 – Biocidal products – Action for annulment – Inadmissible – Appeal manifestly unfounded)»

Order of the Court (Fifth Chamber), 12 December 2003 I - 0000

Summary of the Order

1.. Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Measures of direct and individual concern to them – Regulation concerning biocidal products – Action brought by a producer – Inadmissible

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 1896/2000)

2.. Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Measures of direct and individual concern to them – Directive on biocidal products – Directive not capable of identifying a producer of biocidal products for the purposes of the regulation concerning such products

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 1896/2000; Directive 98/8 of the European Parliament and of the Council)

3.. Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Proceedings for annulment before the Community Court where there is an insurmountable obstacle deriving from national rules of procedure – Excluded

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC)

1.

2.

3.