Case T-338/08: Action brought on 11 August 2008 — Stichting Natuur en Milieu and Pesticide Action Network Europe v Commission
Date: 2008-08-11
Institutions: Court of First Instance
Subjects: European Commission, Netherlands, United Kingdom, access to information, action for annulment (EU), animal nutrition, environmental protection, human nutrition, pesticide

C 301/40

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

22.11.2008

Order of the President of the Court of First Instance
(Interim measures) of 26 September 2008 — Ellinikos
Niognomon v Commission

Action brought on 11 August 2008 — Stichting Natuur
en Milieu and Pesticide Action Network Europe v
Commission

(Case T-312/08 R)

(Application for interim measures — Directive 94/57/EC —
Common rules and standards applicable to ship inspection
and survey organisations — Withdrawal of
recognition
granted to such an organisation — Application for suspension
of operation of a measure — Inadmissibility)

(Case T-338/08)

(2008/C 301/69)

Language of the case: Dutch

(2008/C 301/68)

Parties

Language of the case: English

Applicants: Stichting Natuur en Milieu (Utrecht, Netherlands) and
Pesticide Action Network Europe (London, United Kingdom)
(represented by: B. Kloostra and A. van den Biesen, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Parties

Form of order sought

Applicant: Ellinikos Niognomon AE (Piraeus, Greece)
sented by: S. Pappas, lawyer)

(repre-

— annul the Commission decisions of 1 July 2008 addressed

to the applicants;

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities (repre-
sented by: H. Krämer and N. Yerrell, acting as Agents)

— order the Commission to conduct a substantive examination

of the requests for internal review;

— order the Commission to pay the costs of the proceedings.

Re:

Application for suspension of operation of the letter of the
Commission withdrawing the recognition granted to the appli-
cant by Commission Decision 2005/623/EC of 3 August 2005
on the extension of
the Hellenic
Register of Shipping (Ellinikos Niognomon AE) (OJ 2005 L 219,
p. 43)

the limited recognition of

Operative part of the order

1. The application for interim measures is dismissed.

2. Costs are reserved.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicants have requested the Commission to review Regu-
lation No 149/2008 (1), in accordance with Title IV of Regu-
lation No 1367/2006 (2). By letters of 1 July 2008 the Commis-
sion declared those requests to be inadmissible on the ground
that the contested regulation could not be regarded as being an
act of individual scope or as being a bundle of decisions.

In support of their application, the applicants first submit that
Regulation No 149/2008 consists of a bundle of decisions. The
applicants contend that Regulation No 149/2008 applies to a
definitively defined and previously determined group of
products and active substances.

In this connection, the applicants also invoke the content of
Regulation No 396/2005 (3). Under Article 6 of that regulation,
a separate application for modification may be submitted for
each maximum residue level established. This possibility is also
granted to civil-society organisations with an interest in health,
such as the applicants. A decision on such an application, they
contend, must therefore be a decision which specifically relates
to a particular product or a particular active substance. The
same reasoning ought, in the applicants' view, to be followed in
respect of maximum residue levels established by Regulation
No 149/2008.

22.11.2008

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 301/41

By way of alternative submission, the applicants contend that
Regulation No 149/2008 concerns a decision which comes
within the scope of Article 6(1) of the Aarhus Convention (4).
it relates to a decision
Indeed, according to the applicants,
which is of direct and individual concern to the applicants in a
manner which satisfies the requirements of the fourth paragraph
of Article 230 EC.

(1) Commission Regulation (EC) No 149/2008 of 29 January 2008
amending Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 of the European Parliament
and of the Council by establishing Annexes II, III and IV setting
maximum residue levels for products covered by Annex I thereto
(Text with EEA relevance) (OJ 2008 L 58, p. 1).

(2) Regulation (EC) No 1367/2006 of the European Parliament and of
the Council of 6 September 2006 on the application of the provi-
sions of the Aarhus Convention on access to information, public
participation in decision-making and access to justice in environ-
mental matters to Community institutions and bodies (OJ 2006
L 264, p. 13).

(3) Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 23 February 2005 on maximum residue levels of pesti-
cides in or on food and feed of plant and animal origin and
amending Council Directive 91/414/EEC (Text with EEA relevance)
(OJ 2005 L 70, p. 1).

(4) Convention on access to information, public participation in deci-
sion-making and access to justice in environmental matters —
Declarations (OJ 2005 L 124, p. 4).

Action brought on 26 August 2008 — vwd Vereinigte
Wirtschaftsdienste v Commission

(Case T-353/08)

(2008/C 301/70)

Language of the case: German

Parties

Applicant: vwd Vereinigte Wirtschaftsdienste AG (Frankfurt am
Main, Germany) (represented by R. Bechtold, U. Soltész and C.
von Köckritz, lawyers)

Defendant: Commission of the European Communities

Form of order sought

— order

the Commission to pay the applicant's costs,

in
accordance with Article 87(2) of the Rules of Procedure of
the Court of First Instance.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant contests the Commission's decision of 19 February
2008 in Case No COMP/M.4726 — Thomson Corporation/
Reuters Group, declaring the concentration of financial informa-
tion providers Thomson Corporation and Reuters Group
compatible with the common market
in accordance with
Article 8(2) of the EC Merger Regulation (1).

In support of its application, the applicant submits that the
contested decision is vitiated by manifest errors of assessment,
errors of law and breaches of essential procedural requirements.
In this respect the applicant puts forward ten pleas in law.

First, the market for ‘real time datafeeds’ was wrongly delimited,
so that the decision is contradictory and conflicts with the deci-
sion-making practice of the Commission.

Second, the market position of the parties and the effects of the
concentration on the ‘real time datafeeds’ markets were incor-
rectly assessed,
emanating from
Thomson being wrongly assessed in evaluating the horizontal
the
effects of
concentration being misunderstood.

the concentration and the vertical effects of

competitive pressure

the

Third, in the market for ‘market data platforms’, the competitive
emanating from Thomson in combination with
pressure
Wombat as the only serious potential competitor was disre-
garded when assessing the horizontal effects of the concentra-
tion.

Fourth, the strengthening as a result of the concentration of
Reuters' incentives to foreclose access by third parties to ‘contri-
bution data’ was not assessed.

Fifth, in the market for ‘news’, the market position of the parties
and the effects of the concentration were assessed wrongly, and
the creation of a monopoly on the ‘upstream’ market was made
possible without comprehensible reasons being given.

Sixth, in the markets for ‘desktop products in research and asset
management’, and in particular in the national markets for
‘wealth management desktop products’, no adequate investiga-
tion was made of the effects on competition of the concentra-
tion.

Seventh, the negative overall effects of the concentration across
market boundaries were not examined, even though the
Commission recognised in the decision that
the relevant
markets overlapped.

— annul in its entirety, in accordance with the first paragraph
of Article 231 EC, the Commission's decision of 19 February
2008, COMP/M.4726 — Thomson Corporation/Reuters
Group;

Eighth, commitments which did not relate to all the markets on
which the concentration hindered effective competition were
regarded as sufficient.