CELEX: C1999/366/23
Language: en
Date: 1999-12-18 00:00:00
Title: Case C-362/99: Reference for a preliminary ruling by the Landesgericht Korneuburg (Austria) by order of that court of 17 September 1999 in the case of SEIKO Kabushiki Kaisha v Mohammed Ibrahim

18.12.1999               EN                   Official Journal of the European Communities                                      C 366/15
      Finally, the Commission should have cleared the notified           On a proper construction of Article 1 thereof, is Council
      measures in accordance with Article 87(2)(c) of the EC             Regulation (EC) No 3295/94 of 22 December 1994 laying
      Treaty. Despite knowledge of all the relevant. circum-             down measures to prohibit the release for free circulation,
      stances, the Commission passes over that provision with-           export, re-export or entry for a suspensive procedure of
      out a word of justification.                                       counterfeit and pirated goods (Official Journal of the European
                                                                         Communities L 341 of 30 December 1994) also applicable to
— Legally erroneous assumption of aid elements in the                    situations in which goods of the type specified therein are, in
      privatisation procedure: The Commission wrongly                    the course of transit between two countries not belonging to
      assumes, with reference to the case-law of the Court of            the European Community, temporarily detained by the cus-
      Justice (4), that in the sale/liquidation comparative cost         toms authorities in a Member State on the basis of that
      accounting only the liquidation value determined by the            regulation, at the request of a holder of rights who claims that
      accountants was to be taken into account. Under German             his rights have been infringed and whose undertaking has its
      law, however, the owner is responsible both for the                registered office in a non-member country?
      liquidation costs and the costs of restoring the site, and in
      this case the loans from shareholders could not be called
      in from the mass of the insolvency.
      The Commission’s criticism of the privatisation procedure
      expressed in the contested decision infringes the prohib-
      ition of contradictory conduct, since in many cases the
      Commission made on objection to comparable privatisa-
      tion procedures. Moreover, the Commission’s demands are
      not based on a realistic assessment even of the procedures
      that are normal even in the private sector for the disposal
      of shareholdings through the intervention of investment
      banks. The Federal Government therefore takes the view             Action brought on 4 October 1999 by the Portuguese
      that the privatisation as such does not contain any aids.          Republic against the Commission of the European Com-
      That is, however, ignored by the Commission. On this                                           munities
      point, moreover, insufficient grounds are stated for the
      decision (infringement of the fourth indent of the second
      subparagraph of Article 5 of the ECSC Treaty, Article 15                                   (Case C-365/99)
      of that treaty, and Article 253 of the EC Treaty).
                                                                                                 (1999/C 366/24)
( 1) OJ No C 320 of 13.12.1988, p. 3.
( 2) OJ No L 198 of 30.7.1999, p. 1.
( 3) OJ No L 128 of 21.5.1999, p. 1.                                     An action against the Commission of the European Communi-
( 4) Joined Cases C-278/92, C-279/92 and C-280/92 Spain v Com-
     mission (1994) ECR I-4103.
                                                                         ties was brought before the Court of Justice of the European
                                                                         Communities on 4 October 1999 by the Portuguese Republic,
                                                                         represented by Luı́s Fernandes, Director of the Legal Service of
                                                                         the Directorate-General for the European Communities of the
                                                                         Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Maria João Abecassis, Assistant
                                                                         in the Private Office of the Minister for Agriculture, Rural
                                                                         Development and Fisheries, acting as Agents, and by Carlos
                                                                         Aguiar and Tiago Ferreira de Lima, of the Lisbon Bar, and
                                                                         Gerard van der Wal, of the Brussels Bar, with an address for
                                                                         service in Luxembourg at the Portuguese Embassy, 33 Allée
Reference for a preliminary ruling by the Landesgericht                  Scheffer.
Korneuburg (Austria) by order of that court of 17 Sep-
tember 1999 in the case of SEIKO Kabushiki Kaisha v
                        Mohammed Ibrahim
                                                                         The applicant claims that the Court should:
                          (Case C-362/99)
                                                                         a) declare the present action admissible;
                          (1999/C 366/23)
                                                                         b) annul Commission Decision 99/517/EC (1) in so far as it
Reference has been made to the Court of Justice of the                        replaced the words ‘1 August 1999’ in Article 4 of Decision
European Communities by order of the Landesgericht                            98/653/EC (2) with the words ‘1 February 2000’;
(Regional Court) Korneuburg (Austria) of 17 September 1999,
received at the Court Registry on 30 September 1999, for a
preliminary ruling in the case of SEIKO Kabushiki Kaisha v               c) order the Commission to pay the costs incurred by the
Mohammed Ibrahim on the following question:                                   Portuguese Republic.