Case C-440/07 P: Appeal brought on 24 September 2007 by the Commission of the European Communities against the judgment delivered on 11 July 2007 in Case T-351/03 Schneider Electric SA v Commission
Date: 2007-09-24
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: European Commission, General Court (EU), action for annulment (EU), competition, economic concentration, electrical energy, judicial proceedings

26.1.2008

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 22/19

Order of the Court of 8 November 2007 — Kingdom of
Belgium v Commission of the European Communities

(Case C-242/07 P) (1)

Appeal brought on 13 December 2006 by Carlos Correia
de Matos against the order made by the Court of First
Instance (First Chamber) on 27 September 2006 in Case
T-440/05 Carlos Correia de Matos v European Parliament

(Appeals — Time for appealing — Article 43(6) of the Rules
of Procedure of the Court of First Instance — Original of
the application lodged out of time — Inadmissibility —
Concept of ‘excusable error’ — Concept of ‘unforeseeable
circumstances’)

(2008/C 22/36)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Kingdom of Belgium (represented by: L. Van den
Broeck, Agent, J.-P. Buyle and C. Steyaert, avocats)

Other party to the proceedings: Commission of
the European
Communities (represented by: L. Flynn and A. Steiblytė, Agents)

Re:

annulment of

Appeal brought against the order of the Court of First Instance
(Fourth Chamber) of 15 March 2007 in Case T-5/07 Belgium v
Commission, by which the Court of First Instance dismissed as
inadmissible, because it was brought out of time, the appellant's
the Commission's decision of
action for
18 October 2006 refusing to reimburse it for a principal sum
and interest paid by it in respect of debts to the European Social
Fund — Time-limits for commencing proceedings and time-
limits for lodging an original when a copy has earlier been sent
by fax — Concepts of unforeseeable circumstances and excu-
sable error

Operative part of the order

The Court orders:

1. The appeal is dismissed.

(Case C-502/06 P)

(2008/C 22/37)

Language of the case: Portuguese

Parties

Appellant: Carlos Correia de Matos

Other party to the proceedings: European Parliament

By order of 21 November 2007 the Court of Justice (Eighth
Chamber) held that the appeal was inadmissible.

Appeal brought on 24 September 2007 by the Commission
of the European Communities against the judgment deliv-
ered on 11 July 2007 in Case T-351/03 Schneider Electric
SA v Commission

(Case C-440/07 P)

(2008/C 22/38)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Appellant: Commission of the European Communities (repre-
sented by: M. Petite and F. Arbault, Agents)

Other parties to the proceedings: Schneider Electric SA, Federal
Republic of Germany, French Republic

Form of order sought

The appellant claims that the court should:

— set aside the judgment of the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities of 11 July 2007 in Case T-351/03
Schneider Electric SA v Commission;

— order Schneider Electric SA to pay all the Commission's

costs.

2. The Kingdom of Belgium is ordered to pay the costs.

Pleas in law and main arguments

(1) OJ C 170, 21.7.2007.

the Community's non-contractual

Noting, first of all, that three cumulative conditions are neces-
sary for
liability to be
incurred, namely, respectively, a wrongful act or omission, that
of actual and certain damage and a direct causal link between
the wrongful act or omission and the damage, the applicant
raises seven grounds in support of its appeal.

C 22/20

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

26.1.2008

By its first ground of appeal, the Commission claims that, by
finding, first, that the Commission ‘omitted’ to formulate the
complaint of buttressing of
the positions of Schneider and
Legrand in its statement of objections of 3 August 2001 and,
second, that such formulation presented ‘no particular technical
difficulty’, the Court of First Instance disregarded the authority
of a judgment delivered but still possibly subject to appeal,
made materially incorrect
findings, distorted the evidence
submitted to its evaluation and failed in its duty to state reasons
for its judgments.

Appeal brought on 28 September 2007 by Clara Centeno
Mediavilla, Delphine Fumey, Eva Gerhards,
Iona M.S.
Hamilton, Raymond Hill,
Jean Huby, Patrick Klein,
Domenico Lombardi, Thomas Miller, Miltiadis Moraitis,
Ansa Norman Palmer, Nicola Robinson, François-Xavier
Rouxel, Marta Silva Mendes, Peter van den Hul, Fritz Von
Nordheim Nielsen, and Michaël Zouridakis against the judg-
ment of the Court of First Instance (Fourth Chamber,
Extended Composition) delivered on 11 July 2007 in Case
T-58/05 Centeno Mediavilla and Others v Commission of
the European Communities

By its second ground of appeal, the Commission maintains that
the Court of First Instance erroneously described the facts, made
an error of law and failed in its duty to state reasons in holding
that the procedural error found in the judgment of 22 October
2002 in Case T-310/01 Schneider Electric v Commission was a
‘sufficiently serious’ breach of a rule of law the object of which
was to confer rights on individuals.

By its third ground of appeal, the Commission alleges that the
Court of First
Instance made materially mistaken findings,
distorted the evidence, erroneously described the facts in ques-
tion and made an error of law in holding that there was a ‘suffi-
ciently direct causal link’ between the wrongful act or omission
and the second head of damage pleaded, namely the anticipated
conclusion of Schneider's negotiations with Wendel-KKR on the
transfer price of Legrand SA.

By its fourth ground of appeal, the Commission complains that
the Court of First Instance was in breach of its duty to state
reasons by reason of a contradiction in the grounds vitiating its
reasoning concerning the causal link between the wrongful act
or omission and the various heads of damage pleaded.

By its fifth ground of appeal, the Commission maintains that
the Court of First Instance made materially incorrect findings of
fact, distorted the evidence and made an error of law in not
concluding that Schneider contributed to the entirety of the
second head of damage pleaded. That undertaking failed in
several respects in its duty to take reasonable care to avoid the
damage or mitigate its extent, particularly by failing to bring an
interlocutory application in regard to the obligation to transfer
Legrand to which it claims to have been made subject and by
having chosen to transfer that undertaking at a time when it
was not, anyway, subject to any obligation to do so.

By its sixth ground of appeal, the Commission complains that
the Court of First Instance made rulings beyond those sought,
misapplied the rules governing the burden of proof and
infringed the rights of the defence by identifying a head of
damage which was not pleaded by the applicant undertaking.

the Commission
By its seventh and last ground of appeal,
alleges that the Court of First Instance made an error of law in
awarding Schneider compensatory interest from the accrual of
the second head of damage on 10 December 2002.

(Case C-443/07 P)

(2008/C 22/39)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Appellants: Isabel Clara Centeno Mediavilla, Delphine Fumey, Eva
Gerhards, Iona M.S. Hamilton, Raymond Hill, Jean Huby, Patrick
Klein, Domenico Lombardi, Thomas Millar, Miltiadis Moraitis,
Ansa Norman Palmer, Nicola Robinson, François-Xavier Rouxel,
Marta Silva Mendes, Peter van den Hul, Fritz Von Nordheim
Nielsen,
by: G.
Vandersanden and L. Levi, avocats)

and Michaël Zouridakis

(represented

Other parties to the proceedings: Commission of the European
Communities, Council of the European Union

Form of order sought

— set aside the judgment of the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities of 11 July 2007 in Case T-58/05;

— consequently, deliver judgment in accordance with the form

of order sought at first instance and, therefore,

— annul the grade classification granted to the appellants
in the decisions relating to their recruitment in so far as
that classification is based on Article 12(3) of Annex XIII
to the new Staff Regulations;

— restructure the appellants' career (including valuation of
their experience in the grade as thus corrected, their
rights to advancement to a higher step and their pension
rights), on the basis of the grade at which they would
have been appointed on the basis of the competition
notice in pursuance of which they were placed on the
list of suitable candidates, either to the grade mentioned
on that competition notice or
to the grade corre-
sponding to its equivalent according to the classification
in the new Staff Regulations (and the appropriate step in
accordance with the rules applicable before 1 May
2004), as from the date of the decision to appoint them;