Case C-367/05: Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 18 July 2007 (reference for a preliminary ruling from the Hof van Cassatie van België — Belgium) — Criminal proceedings against Norma Kraaijenbrink (Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement — Article 54 — Ne bis in idem principle — Notion of same acts — Different acts — Prosecution in two Contracting States — Acts linked together by the same criminal intention)
Date: 2007-10-06
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: Belgium, Netherlands, Schengen Agreement, interpretation of the law, money laundering, penalty

C 235/6

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

6.10.2007

Other party to the proceedings: Commission of
Communities
Quintillán, Agents)

the European
(represented by: B. Doherty and S. Pardo

Party in the main proceedings

Norma Kraaijenbrink

Re:

the Court of First Instance
Appeal against the judgment of
(Second Chamber) of 28 June 2005 in Case T-158/03 Industrias
Químicas del Vallés v Commission dismissing an action for annul-
ment of Commission Decision 2003/308/EC of 2 May 2003
concerning the non-inclusion of metalaxyl
to
Council Directive 91/414/EEC and the withdrawal of authorisa-
tions
for plant-protection products containing this active
substance (OJ 2003 L 113, p. 8)

in Annex I

Operative part of the judgment

The Court:

1) Sets aside the judgment of

the
European Communities of 28 June 2005 in Case T-158/03
Industrias Químicas del Vallés v Commission;

the Court of First

Instance of

2) Annuls Commission Decision 2003/308/EC of 2 May 2003
concerning the non-inclusion of metalaxyl in Annex I to Council
Directive 91/414/EEC and the withdrawal of authorisations for
plant-protection products containing this active substance;

3) Orders the Commission of the European Communities to pay the
costs of the present proceedings and of the proceedings at first
instance,
including those relating to the proceedings for interim
measures before both the Court of Justice and the Court of First
Instance.

(1) OJ C 271, 29.10.2005.

Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 18 July 2007
(reference for a preliminary ruling from the Hof van
Cassatie van België — Belgium) — Criminal proceedings
against Norma Kraaijenbrink

(Case C-367/05) (1)

(Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement —
Article 54 — Ne bis in idem principle — Notion of ‘same
acts’ — Different acts — Prosecution in two Contracting
States — Acts linked together by the same criminal intention)

(2007/C 235/09)

Language of the case: Dutch

Referring court

Hof van Cassatie van België

Re:

Reference for a preliminary ruling — Hof van Cassatie van
België — Interpretation of Article 54 of the Convention imple-
menting the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 between the
Governments of the States of the Benelux Economic Union, the
Federal Republic of Germany, and the French Republic on the
gradual abolition of checks at their common borders (OJ 2000
L 239, p. 19) — Ne bis in idem principle — Acts different but
sharing a common intention and thus legally constituting a
single act — Whether or not these are ‘the same acts’ for the
purposes of Article 54 — Discovery, subsequent to conviction
in one State, of other acts committed during the same period as
the acts sanctioned and committed with the same criminal
intention — Right to prosecute these additional acts in another
State — Account to be taken of sentences already imposed in
the first State

Operative part of the judgment

Article 54 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement
of 14 June 1985 between the Governments of
the
Benelux Economic Union, the Federal Republic of Germany and the
French Republic on the gradual abolition of checks at their common
borders, signed on 19 June 1990 in Schengen (Luxembourg), must be
interpreted as meaning that:

the States of

— the relevant criterion for the purposes of the application of that
article is identity of the material acts, understood as the existence
of a set of facts which are inextricably linked together, irrespective
of
interest
protected;

the legal classification given to them or

the legal

— different acts consisting,

first,

in holding in one
in particular,
Contracting State the proceeds of drug trafficking and, second, in
the exchanging at exchange bureaux in another Contracting State
of sums of money also originating from such trafficking should not
be regarded as ‘the same acts’ within the meaning of Article 54 of
the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement merely
because the competent national court finds that those acts are
linked together by the same criminal intention;

— it is for that national court to assess whether the degree of identity
and connection between all the facts to be compared is such that it
is possible,
the said relevant abovementioned
criterion, to find that they are ‘the same acts’ within the meaning
the Convention implementing the Schengen
of Article 54 of
Agreement.

in the light of

(1) OJ C 48, 25.02.2007.