Case T-625/16: Action brought on 2 September 2016 — Przedsiębiorstwo Energetyki Cieplnej v ECHA
Date: 2016-09-02
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: administrative formalities, aid to undertakings, equal treatment, payment, principle of legal certainty, principle of proportionality, right to justice, small and medium-sized enterprises








C_2016402EN.01005102.xml










31.10.2016   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 402/51





Action brought on 2 September 2016 — Przedsiębiorstwo Energetyki Cieplnej v ECHA
(Case T-625/16)
(2016/C 402/61)
Language of the case: Polish

Parties


Applicant: Przedsiębiorstwo Energetyki Cieplnej sp. z o. o. (Grajewo, Poland) (represented by: T. Dobrzyński, lawyer)

Defendant: European Chemicals Agency

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:






—


annul ECHA Decision No SME (2016) 2851 of 23 June 2016, which found that the applicant did not meet the conditions for a reduction in the fees for medium-sized undertakings and by which an administrative charge was imposed on it;










—


annul ECHA Invoice No 10058238 of 23 June 2016 relating to the difference between the fee paid by the applicant and the fee for a large undertaking due pursuant to ECHA Decision No SME (2016) 2851;










—


annul ECHA Invoice No 10058239 of 23 June 2016, which set the level of the administrative charge pursuant to ECHA Decision No SME (2016) 2851;










—


annul Decision No 14/2015 of the ECHA Management Board of 4 June 2015 (MB/43/2014) ME (2016) 2851;










—


order the defendant to pay the costs of the proceedings.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action the applicant puts forward five pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law: infringement of the principle of conferral of powers






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The amount of the administrative charge provided for in Decision MB/43/2014 of the ECHA Management Board, which forms the basis for the adoption of the contested decision and the invoices, is, measured against the functions that the administrative charge is required to fulfil, disproportionately high and is thereby tantamount to a penalty. This is at variance with the principle, laid down in Article 5 EU, of conferral of powers, in conjunction with recital 11 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 340/2008.














2.


Second plea in law: infringement of the principle of legal certainty and of the right to proper administration






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The applicant based its declaration concerning the size of the undertaking on information derived from, inter alia, the ECHA and on national information. The size of the undertaking had to be determined in accordance with the Law on the freedom of economic activity of 2 July 2004. Under that legislation undertakings are not defined according to their shareholding structure. The ECHA failed to provide sufficient information on the registration rules and charged the fees without it being possible for the error to be corrected.














3.


Third plea in law: infringement of the principle of proportionality






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According to the provisions of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 and of Commission Regulation (EC) No 340/2008, the administrative charges have to be adapted to the actual control costs of ECHA. The practice of ECHA by which undertakings which have incorrectly indicated their size have imposed on them the costs for the controls of all undertakings has to be regarded as impermissible.














4.


Fourth plea in law: infringement of the principle of equality






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By imposing administrative charges and setting the level of those charges on the basis of the size of the undertaking, ECHA has infringed the principle of equality. That principle is infringed if an undertaking which is classifiable as large solely because a public body holds part of its share capital incurs the same administrative charge as an undertaking which is classifiable as large on the basis of its annual turnover and the number of its staff.














5.


Fifth plea in law: invalidity of the invoices issued on the basis of the contested decision






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On the basis of the declaration of annulment of ECHA Decision No SME (2016) 2851, the invoices forming the basis of ECHA’s payment requests must be declared invalid. The fees charged are also not owed because, at the time when ECHA Decision No SME (2016) 2851 was adopted and the invoices were issued, the applicant was not under any obligation to register in the REACH system.