Case T-304/01: Action brought on 7 December 2001 by Julia Abad Pérez and Others against the Council of the European Union and the Commission of the European Communities
Date: 2002-03-02
Institutions: Court of First Instance
Subjects: EC action to establish liability, Spain, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, cattle, livestock farming

C 56/12

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

2.3.2002

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

Action brought on 6 December 2001 by Antonio Enrico
Tatti against Commission of the European Communities

Action brought on 7 December 2001 by Julia Abad Pérez
and Others against the Council of the European Union
and the Commission of the European Communities

(Case T-296/01)

(2002/C 56/23)

(Case T-304/01)

(2002/C 56/24)

(Language of the case: French)

(Language of the case: Spanish)

An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities on 6 December 2001 by Antonio
Enrico Tatti, residing in Overijse (Belgium), represented by
Lucas Vogel, lawyer.

An action against the Council of the European Union and the
Commission of
the European Communities was brought
before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities
on 7 December 2001 by Julia Abad Pérez and Others, all of
them established in Spain, represented by Miquel Roca Junyent,
Joan Roca Sagarra and Marta Pons de Vall Alomar, lawyers.

The applicant claims that the Court should:

The applicants claim that the Court should:

— annul

the decision of

the appointing authority of
16 August 2001 rejecting the complaint lodged by the
applicant on 11 February 2001, challenging the decision
of the appeal assessor of 21 November 2000 refusing to
review the applicant’s staff report;

— order the defendant

to pay damages amounting to

EUR 2 500;

— order the defendant to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of his claims, the applicant alleges infringement of
Articles 5, 6 and 7 of the general provisions implementing
Article 43 of the Staff Regulations inasmuch as the reporting
procedure is irregular and in particular that the time-limit to
which the administration should have adhered in drawing up
the staff report was not observed. The applicant further claims
infringement of Article 43 of the Staff Regulations, manifest
error of assessment and breach of the principle of non-
discrimination. According to the applicant, his staff report was
drawn up taking account of arbitrary rules for reporting on
staff which fettered subsequent reporting officers in their
discretion.

— declare that the Council and the Commission have acted
unlawfully and are thus liable under Article 288 EC for
having spread the BSE crisis within the territory of the
European Union and, consequently,
for the damage
alleged in the present application;

— order the Council and the Commission jointly and
severally to pay compensation for the damage caused to
the applicants as a result of that crisis, quantified in the
present application in the sum of 19 438 372,69 euros,
and for the non-material damage suffered by them
(amounting to a further 15 % over and above the
aforementioned sum, that is to say, 2 915 755,80 euros);
and

— order the Council and the Commission to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicants are Spanish stockbreeders. They are claiming
compensation for the damage and prejudice suffered as a result
the crisis concerning the so-called ‘mad cow disease’
of
since the outbreak of the first case of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE) in Spain on 22 November 2000, which
plunged the Spanish stockbreeding sector into a serious crisis
from which it has still not yet managed fully to recover.

According to the applicants, each stockbreeder is currently
having to bear:

— the costs of removal and destruction of specified risk

material (SRM);

2.3.2002

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 56/13

— in most cases, the extermination of the entire herd where

— order the Commission to pay all the costs.

a cow is found to be infected;

— a decrease in consumption of beef and a lack of consumer
confidence resulting from the unpopularity of veal in the
market, with the consequent direct economic cost arising
from the repercussions of reports in the media of the
discovery of each new case of mad cow disease or of
persons afflicted by Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in any
Member State of the European Union; and

— the removal of the spinal column in calves aged over

12 months.

The applicants maintain that the abovementioned damage, to
which must be added the collateral and non-material damage
with which they have also been faced, results primarily from a
lack of action, alternatively tardy and inadequate action, on
the part of the Council and the Commission, which allowed
BSE to develop into the most serious agricultural and food
crisis to affect the Union since its creation. The absence of a
resolute policy to control that disease with a view to its total
eradication, which allowed it
to spread from the United
Kingdom throughout Europe, constitutes an unlawful act on
the part of the Community institutions in question, since those
institutions had the requisite powers, from the appearance of
the very first signs of the crisis, to adopt all the legal measures
needed to resolve it.

Action brought on 7 December 2001 by Thalassa Sea-
foods SA against Commission of the European Communi-
ties

(Case T-305/01)

(2002/C 56/25)

(Language of the case: French)

An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities on 7 December 2001 by Thalassa
Seafoods SA, whose registered office is at Antwerp (Belgium),
represented by Jean-Pierre Brusseleers, lawyer.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant in the present case, a company incorporated
under Belgian law carrying on business as importer into the
Community of frozen fishery products originating in China,
has brought an action seeking compensation for damage
allegedly suffered as a result of the immediate entry into force
of Commission Decision 2000/86/EC of 21 December 1999
laying down special conditions governing imports of fishery
products originating in China and repealing Decision
97/368/EC (1), with no transitional period applicable to goods
covered by contracts in force at the date of its publication.
Annex B of that decision fundamentally amended the list of
list of Chinese establishments approved for the export of
fishery products to the Community to such an extent that
almost all the suppliers with whom the applicant had con-
cluded its contracts were no longer listed.

From September 1999 to January 2000, the applicant com-
pany concluded with several Chinese suppliers a number of
purchase contracts for several containers of frozen prawns
valued in excess of USD 2 000 000. Those contracts all
stipulated that the goods were to be shipped between the end
of September 1999 and mid-April 2000.

In support of its arguments, the applicant claims:

— that the Commission acted wrongly inasmuch as Decision
2000/86/EC was not published until 2 February 2000,
although it was of immediate application and should
therefore have been published without delay, that is to
say by 22 December 1999 at the latest, in order to allow
traders to take all appropriate measures in order to
minimise their losses;

— breach of the principle of legitimate expectations;

— breach of the principle of proportionality in that the
Commission itself, on the one hand, introduced tran-
sitional measures, by Decision 2000/300/EC of 18 April
2000 amending Decision 2000/86/EC(2) and, on the
other, published on 11 September 2000 a new list in
which the supplier of the goods under the purchase
contracts which were annulled was again admitted as an
approved establishment.

The applicant claims that the Court should:

— order the Commission to pay it EUR 256 179,10 in
damages, together with interest at the statutory rate of
8 % per annum as from the date on which notice was
served;

(1) OJ 2000 L 26, p. 26.
(2) OJ 2000 L 97, p. 15.