Case T-384/05: Action brought on  19 October 2005  — I.R.I.P.A. Abruzzo v Commission
Date: 2005-12-24
Institutions: Court of First Instance
Subjects: EU financing arrangements, European Commission, action for annulment (EU), agricultural sector representative body, financial solvency

24.12.2005

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 330/23

Order of the Court of First Instance of 19 September 2005
— Air Bourbon v Commission

Other party/parties to the proceedings before the Board of Appeal:
Budějovický Budvar, národní podnik (České Budějovice, Czech
Republic)

(Case T-321/04) (1)

(State aid — Decision to raise no objections — Action for
annulment — Time-limit for bringing an action — Publica-
tion of a summary notice — Not admissible)

(2005/C 330/56)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Form of order sought

— Partially annul the decision of the Board of Appeal of the
Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market
(Trade
Marks and Designs) of 11 July 2005 (Case R 514/2004-2),
namely insofar as the application was rejected for goods in
class 33, and

— Order that the costs of the proceedings be borne by the

defendant.

Applicant(s): Air Bourbon SAS (Sainte-Marie, island of Réunion,
France) (represented by: S. Vaisse, lawyer)

Pleas in law and main arguments

Defendant(s): Commission of the European Communities (repre-
sented by: C. Giolito and J. Buendía Sierra, Agents)

Application for

annulment of the Commission Decision (C(2003) 4708 final)
of 16 December 2003 to raise no objections against aid
N 427/2003 granted by the French authorities to Air Austral

Operative part of the Order

1. The action is dismissed as inadmissible;

2. There is no need to adjudicate on Air Austral's application for

leave to intervene;

3. The applicant is ordered to pay the costs.

(1) OJ C 262, 23.10.2004.

Applicant for the Community trade mark: The applicant

Community trade mark concerned: The word mark ‘BUDWEISER’
for goods in classes 32 and 33 — application No 1 603 489

Proprietor of the mark or sign cited in the opposition proceedings:
Budějovický Budvar, národní podnik

Mark or sign cited: The international figurative marks and word
mark ‘BUDWEISER’ and ‘BUDWEISER BUDVAR’ for goods in
classes 31 and 32

Decision of the Opposition Division: Opposition upheld for all the
contested goods

Decision of the Board of Appeal: Dismissal of the appeal

Pleas in law: Infringement of Article 8(1)(b) of Council Regu-
lation No 40/94 as there is no likelihood of confusion between
the conflicting marks. The goods are sufficiently dissimilar to
exclude any confusion on the part of the consumer.

Action brought on 26 September 2005 — Anheuser-
Busch/OHIM

(Case T-366/05)

(2005/C 330/57)

Language in which the application was lodged: English

Action brought on 19 October 2005 — I.R.I.P.A. Abruzzo
v Commission

(Case T-384/05)

(2005/C 330/58)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant(s): Anheuser-Busch, Inc. (St. Louis, USA) [represented
by: V. von Bomhard, A. Renck, A. Pohlmann, G. Burkhart,
lawyers]

Parties

Applicant(s): Istituto Regionale per gli Interventi Promozionali
in Agricoltura (Regional Institute for the Promotion of Agri-
culture) — I.R.I.P.A. Abruzzo (Pescara, Italy) (represented by:
Gianluca Belotti, Nicola Pisani and Emanuele Dell' Elce,
lawyers)

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

Defendant(s): Commission of the European Communities

C 330/24

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

24.12.2005

Form of order sought

Defendant(s): Commission of the European Communities

The applicant claims that the Court should:

— annul the Commission's decision set out in its letter of 9
August 2005 and, insofar as necessary, the decision in the
Commission's letter of 12 August 2005, and declare that
the Commission should award the applicant the grant in
issue on the basis that it meets all of the other award
criteria;

— order the Commission to pay the costs.

Form of order sought

— Annul in its entirety the Decision of the Commission of 6
July 2005 (process REM 05/2004) regarding a procedure of
remission and repayment of customs duties;

— order the Commission to pay the costs generated by this

Pleas in law and main arguments

procedure.

This action is brought against the decision of the Commission
of the European Communities of 9 August 2005, received by
the applicant on 12 August 2005, informing the applicant that
its application for financial assistance under Regulation (EC) No
814/2000 from appropriations in the 2005 budget was not
selected on the ground that it was alleged to lack financial
capacity.

Contrary to the reasons put forward by the Commission in
support of its refusal to grant the application for funding, the
applicant submits that its financial capacity and that of its part-
ners in the initiative far exceeded that required by the call for
proposals, even on a strict
the liquidity
criterion laid down by the Commission.

interpretation of

Moreover, the applicant submits that this liquidity criterion, as
interpreted by the Commission, is clearly illogical and out of
proportion to the intended objectives, and thus artificially
limits the number of prospective candidates. In this regard, the
applicant maintains that the condition of financial capacity was
fully met in that its liquidity far exceeded 100 % of the total
grant applied for (EUR 263 895,50 ) and that, during each of
the three financial years for which the balance sheets and
annual accounts were approved and closed,
the applicant's
liquidity and that of its partners clearly exceeded this figure.

Action brought on 21 October 2005 — Transnáutica/
Commission

(Case T-385/05)

(2005/C 330/59)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicant(s): Transnáutica — Transportes e Navegação, SA
(Matosinhos, Portugal) [represented by: C. Fernández Vicién, I.
Moreno-Tapia, D. Ortigão Ramos, B. Aniceto Silva, lawyers]

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant is a Portuguese company, primarily engaged in
freight transportation. In 1994 another Portuguese company
dispatched a certain number of consignments of tobacco and
ethyl alcohol from Portugal to countries then outside the Com-
munity under the external Community transit procedure. The
applicant was named as principal, in the terms of Article 96 of
the Community Customs Code (‘CCC’), for these consignments.
It was later revealed that, in fact, the applicant's management
was fully unaware of these transactions, as one of its employees
had been acting fraudulently, using the applicant's guarantee
certificate in violation of internal instructions.

Because there was no evidence that the consignments in ques-
tion had reached the customs office of their destination, the
applicant, as principal, was requested to pay the relevant
customs debts. The applicant later applied under Article 239
CCC for the repayment and remission of these debts, alleging
that, being unaware of
its
employee, it was not involved in any fraudulent activities and
had collaborated with the authorities and that,
further, the
Portuguese customs authorities had never informed it about
their suspicions of fraud in relation to the transactions in ques-
tion. This application was rejected by the contested Decision.

the unauthorised activities of

In support of its application, the applicant contends that the
Commission infringed essential procedural requirements, as it
failed to consult the Customs committee and only requested
the applicant to intervene in the procedure at a very late stage.
The applicant also invokes an alleged manifest error of assess-
ment by the Commission of the facts in question, as well as an
infringement of the Commission's duty to state reasons for its
decisions. The applicant further refers to alleged infringements
of the principle of good administration and its rights of defence
on the grounds that the Commission has failed to examine
carefully and impartially all relevant aspects of the case. Finally,
the applicant invokes an alleged infringement of the principle
of proportionality, since its application was rejected even
though the Commission and the Portuguese authorities had
started an investigation to discover whether the operations in
questions constituted smuggling.