Source: EURLEX
Language: en
Format: md

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| 20.5.2019 | EN | Official Journal of the European Union | C 172/44 |

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Action brought on 28 March 2019 — Public.Resource.Org and Right to Know v Commission

(Case T-185/19)

(2019/C 172/58)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicants: Public.Resource.Org, Inc. (Sebastopol, California, United States), Right to Know CLG (Dublin, Ireland) (represented by: F. Logue, Solicitor, A. Grünwald, J. Hackl and C. Nüßing, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicants claim that the Court should:

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| — | annul decision C(2019) 639 final of the European Commission of 22 January 2019 (including the initial decision of 15 November 2018 with reference GROW/D3/ALR/dr (2018) 5993057); |

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| — | in the alternative, refer the matter back to the European Commission; and |

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

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicants rely on two pleas in law.

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| 1. | First plea in law, alleging that the European Commission misinterpreted and/or misapplied Article 4(2), first indent, of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, [(1)](#ntr1-C_2019172EN.01004401-E0001) since this provision does not protect the requested harmonised standards:   |  |  | | --- | --- | | — | No copyright protection of the requested harmonised standards is possible because they are part of EU Law; |  |  |  | | --- | --- | | — | The requested harmonised standards lack originality and therefore do not benefit from copyright protection; |  |  |  | | --- | --- | | — | The defendant did not demonstrate the alleged undermining of the commercial interest of the standardisation organization. | |

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| 2. | Second plea in law, alleging that the European Commission infringed the last clause of Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001, since it wrongly denied that the applicants have an overriding public interest in access to the requested harmonised standards:   |  |  | | --- | --- | | — | The concepts of the rule of law and fundamental rights require free access to the laws of the European Union; |  |  |  | | --- | --- | | — | The requested standards contain environmental information and particularly information on emissions into the environment and therefore must be released according to Regulation (EC) No 1367/2006; [(2)](#ntr2-C_2019172EN.01004401-E0002) |  |  |  | | --- | --- | | — | The defendant did not give adequate reasons for the denial of the overriding public interest. | |

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