CELEX: C2000/372/29
Language: en
Date: 2000-12-23 00:00:00
Title: Case T-328/00: Action brought on 24 October 2000 by Mario Costacurta against the Commission of the European Communities

C 372/14              EN                       Official Journal of the European Communities                                  23.12.2000
Action brought on 20 October 2000 by ICAT Food SpA                        The authorities in question in fact endorsed the validity of the
  against the Commission of the European Communities                      ATR 1 certificates issued, proving that they were not misled
                                                                          by declarations made by the exporting companies. The main
                                                                          argument put forward by the Commission that in the present
                        (Case T-327/00)                                   case there was no ‘inward-processing’ error on the part of the
                                                                          authorities thus fails.
                        (2000/C 372/28)
                                                                          The question as to whether the other two conditions laid down
                                                                          in Article 222 were fulfilled was contested by the Commission
                   (Language of the case: Italian)                        only indirectly.
An action against the Commission of the European Communi-                 So far as concerns the alleged error of interpretation of the
ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the                rule against intermingling, the applicant claims that the
European Communities on 20 October 2000 by ICAT Food                      Commission’s certainty that mingling of Turkish and Com-
SpA, represented by Roberto Delfino, of the Genoa Bar,                    munity goods was prohibited caused the Community inspec-
Massimo Merola, of the Rome Bar, Flora Santaniello, of the                tors to fail to calculate the proportion of raw material
Lecce Bar, Daniele P. Domenicucci, of the Pescara Bar, with an            originating in third countries and to verify to what extent, if
address for service in Luxembourg at the Chambers of Alain                any, it exceeded the tolerance level (10 %) provided for by the
Lorang, 51 Rue Albert I                                                   Decision of the EEC-Turkey Association Council.
The applicant claims that the Court should:
—     annul Commission Decision C(2000)1612 of 19 June
      2000 rejecting the request not to proceed with the
      post-clearance recovery, under Article 220(2)(b) of the
      Community Customs Code, of import duties in respect
      of three consignments of tuna from Turkey covered by                Action brought on 24 October 2000 by Mario Costacurta
      IM4 documents No 548/P of 8 September 1995,                           against the Commission of the European Communities
      No 866/E of 9 January 1996, and No 2656/H of
      24 January 1996;
                                                                                                  (Case T-328/00)
—     order the Commission to pay the costs of the proceedings.
                                                                                                  (2000/C 372/29)
Pleas in law and main arguments
                                                                                             (Language of the case: French)
The present case concerns the challenge by the Community
authorities of the ATR 1 certificates issued by Turkey in respect         An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
of the release into free circulation, by customs at Genoa, of             ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
three consignments of tinned tuna purchased from the Turkish              European Communities on 24 October 2000 by Mario
undertaking Kervitas. The Community authorities argued that               Costacurta, residing in Luxembourg, represented by Marc Petit,
most of the raw material used in the manufacture of the                   of the Luxembourg Bar.
exported products was not of exclusively Turkish origin and
that the undertakings involved had not physically separated               The applicant claims that the Court should:
the raw material of Turkish origin from the rest.
                                                                          —    annul the implied rejection of the Commission of the
In support of its claims, the applicant alleges infringement of                European Communities of his request of 6 June 2000;
Article 220(2)(b) of the Community Customs Code, breach of
the principle of proportionality and of the obligation to                 —    order that the applicant be re-assigned to a third country
provide a statement of reasons as provided for in Article 253                  with effect from 1 September 2000, pursuant to Article 3
of the EC Treaty.                                                              of Annex X to the Staff Regulations;
So far as concerns Article 220 of the abovementioned Code,                —    order the Commission of the European Communities to
the applicant claims that, assuming that the post-clearance                    pay all the costs of the proceedings;
recovery of the duties was well-founded (which is at the very
least doubtful) and that the Turkish authorities had committed            —    reserve to the applicant all other rights, dues, pleas and
an error when issuing the certificate of origin, such an error                 actions, in particular with regard to compensation for
should be characterised as an ‘inward-processing error’.                       damage.
 ---pagebreak--- 23.12.2000            EN                     Official Journal of the European Communities                                     C 372/15
Pleas in law and main arguments                                         The applicant accuses the Commission of infringing its right
                                                                        to a hearing, because on its inspection of the files it was
                                                                        not presented with all the relevant supporting documents.
The applicant, who is assigned to the Office for Official               Moreover, because of the improper conduct of the Spanish
Publications of the European Communities, is contesting the             authorities and the Commission, particularly in the area of
decision rejecting his request to be assigned to a third country        quota administration, special circumstances existed within the
pursuant to Article 3 of Annex X to the Staff Regulations of            meaning of Article 13 of the Regulation. It also maintains that
officials.                                                              there is no proof or any convincing evidence of alleged forgery,
                                                                        and that the Commission has explained the facts in a defective
The pleas in law and main arguments are largely identical with          and incomplete manner.
those relied upon in Case T-202/00.
                                                                        (1) Council Regulation (EEC) No 1430/79 of 2 July 1979 on the
                                                                            repayment or remission of import or export duties (OJ 1979
                                                                            L 175, p. 1).
Action brought on 25 October 2000 by Bonn Fleisch
Ex- und Import GmbH against the Commission of the
                    European Communities
                                                                        Action brought on 26 October 2000 by Stefano Cocchi
                        (Case T-329/00)
                                                                        and Evi Hainz against Commission of the European
                                                                                                  Communities
                        (2000/C 372/30)
                                                                                                (Case T-330/00)
                  (Language of the case: German)
                                                                                                (2000/C 372/31)
An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
European Communities on 25 October 2000 by Bonn Fleisch                                    (Language of the case: French)
Ex- und Import GmbH, established in Troisdorf, Germany,
represented by Dietrich Ehle, Rechstsanwalt, Cologne.                   An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
                                                                        ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the
                                                                        European Communities on 26 October 2000 by Stefano
The applicant claims that the Court should:
                                                                        Cocchi and Evi Hainz, residing in Italy, represented by Georges
                                                                        Vandersanden and Laure Levi, of the Brussels Bar.
—     annul Commission Decision K(2000) 2207 endg. of
      25 July 2000 (REM 49/99);
                                                                        The applicants claim that the Court should:
—     order the Commission to pay the costs.
                                                                        —     annul the decisions of the Authority Empowered to
                                                                              Conclude Contracts (AECC) of 16 March 2000 and of
Pleas in law and main arguments                                               22 February 2000 not to accept the applicants’ candi-
                                                                              dature for the posts advertised in vacancy notices
                                                                              COM/R/5530/00 of 24 February 2000 and
The action is brought against the Commission’s decision of                    COM/R/5500/00 of 24 January 2000, or, in the alterna-
25 July 2000, in which the latter refused the application by                  tive, to annul those vacancy notices;
the Federal Republic of Germany to grant the applicant
remission of import duties for the importation of beef on the           —     annul the appointments made by the AECC, of unknown
basis of Article 13 of Regulation (EEC) No 1430/79 (1). The                   date, in the context of the recruitment procedures put in
Commission maintains in the contested decision that the                       motion by those two vacancy notices;
extracts submitted by the applicant at the time of import
clearance were forgeries, and that licence forgeries fall within
the business risk of the applicant. Neither the Spanish auth-           —     order the defendant to pay one euro by way of damages
orities which issued the licences nor the Commission had                      for the damage suffered as a result of that decision, such
acted improperly, so the normal business risk to be borne by                  sum being set ex aequo et bono and provisionally;
importers of goods benefiting from customs advantages was
not exceeded.                                                           —     order the defendant to pay the whole of the costs.