CELEX: C1997/054/20
Language: en
Date: 1997-02-22 00:00:00
Title: Reference for a preliminary ruling by the Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale del Lazio by order of that court of 14 February 1996 in the case of Associazione Produttori Vitivinicoli della Provincia di Treviso and Others against Ministero delle Risorse Agricole, Alimentari e Forestali (Interveners ad adiuvandum: Consorzio Agrario Interprovinciale di Treviso e Belluno and Others) (Case C-398/96)

No C 54/ 14               EN                 Official Journal of the European Communities                                            22 . 2 . 97
      that the undertakings in question participated in 'what                — its meeting competition with an outsider, without
      is essentially, if anything at all, an Article 85 practice';                making losses;
( c ) that the Court of First Instance erred in law when it                  — its granting loyalty rebates, expressly exempted by
      decided that concerted behaviour among Cewal                                a group exemption regulation.
      members could be viewed as ' abuses ' within the
      meaning of Article 86 of the EC Treaty, although they             (') Council Regulation ( EEC ) No 4056/86 of 22 December 1986
      were not the result of unilateral conduct by the Cewal                laying down detailed rules for the application of Articles 85
      members;                                                              and 86 of the Treaty to maritime transport ( OJ No L 378 ,
                                                                            31 . 12 . 1986 , p. 4 ).
( d ) that, at the very least, the Court of First Instance has
      not responded to the appellant's pleas in that respect.
Alternatively, the appellant claims that the fine should be
annulled or substantially reduced . Indeed, they have                   Reference for a preliminary ruling by the Tribunale
shown :                                                                 Amministrativo Regionale del Lazio by order of that court
                                                                        of 14 February 1996 in the case of Associazione
                                                                        Produttori Vitivinicoli della Provincia di Treviso and
( a ) that account ought to have been taken of the novelty              Others        against      Ministero        delle  Risorse   Agricole,
      of the alleged infringements, of the regulatory context           Alimentari       e    Forestali      ( Interveners  ad   adiuvandum :
      in Zaire, and of the cooperative attitude of the                  Consorzio Agrario Interprovinciale di Treviso e Belluno
      appellant;                                                                                         and Others )
                                                                                                     ( Case C-398/96 )
( b ) that the statement of objections was not addressed to                                             ( 97/C 54/20 )
      the appellant but to Cewal , and the statement of
      objections threatened to impose fines on Cewal and
      not on its members, and that therefore the                        Reference has been made to the Court of Justice of the
      Commission was not entitled thereafter to impose                  European Communities by order of the Tribunale
      fines on some of Cewal 's members without having                  Amministrativo Regionale ( Regional Administrative
      announced it in the statement of objections ;                     Court), Lazio, of 14 February 1996, received at the Court
                                                                        Registry on 16 December 1996 , for a preliminary ruling in
                                                                        the case       of Associazione          Produttori  Vitivinicoli  della
( c ) that no reason is given why no fine was imposed on                Provincia di Treviso and Others against Ministero delle
      CMZ ( which carried 40% of the trade ); that the only             Risorse Agricole, Alimentari e Forestall ( Interveners ad
      reason is that the Commission found it politically                adiuvandum : Consorzio Agrario Interprovincial di Treviso
      difficult to impose a fine on a Zairian liner company;            e Belluno and Others ) on the following questions:
( d ) that also the interest rate applicable to the payment of          1 . Is Article 39 ( 4 ) of Council Regulation ( EEC ) No 822/
      the fine ( 13,25% ) is abnormally high .                               87 (') which provides that the sole criterion for
                                                                             allocating between the various producers the quantities
                                                                             of table wine for distillation is to be a percentage
The appellant finally submits that anti-trust procedures                     based on the yield per hectare where it exceeds a
resulting in the imposition of fines upon companies are                      certain level — leaving aside the possibility of
procedures having criminal character within the meaning                      interaction with other methods, which take into
of the ECHR and that therefore the Court of First
                                                                             account the production stocks at the close of the wine
Instance has infringed :                                                     year, or any other objective criterion — contrary to
                                                                             the principle of proportionality in that it lays down a
                                                                             single unit of measurement which is essentially
( a ) Article 6 ( 3 ) of the ECHR in so far as the 'cause of the
                                                                             restrictive and inappropriate as a means of restoring
      accusation ' has been modified by the Court of First                   market balance ?
      Instance ;
                                                                        2 . Is the fourth indent of Article 4 ( 2 ) of Regulation
( b ) Article 7 ( 1 ) of the ECHR in so far as the Court of
                                                                             ( EEC ) No 441 /88 ( 2 ) which, for the purposes of the
      First Instance has considered that the Appellant could
                                                                             common market in wine, designates the whole of Italy
      be fined, contrary to all existing case-law, for entirely              as a single production region ( Region 4 ) incompatible
      novel    abuses ,    never condemned       before , and   in
                                                                             with the first subparagraph of Article 4(1 ) which lays
      particular:                                                            down that, in designating the production regions,
                                                                             account must also be taken of ' production and
      — its refusal to renounce an exclusivity right granted                 climatic conditions ', and does it in substance
           by the State ;                                                    circumvent the second subparagraph of Article 4 ( 1 )
 ---pagebreak--- 22 . 2 . 97               EN                    Official Journal of the European Communities                                No C 54/ 15
      which provides that 'the said regions must coincide                  Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
      with administrative units larger than communes and
       comprise administrative units on which statistics are               Concerning annulment
       available for the reference wine years ', by identifying
       production regions with Member States ?                             — Inadequacy and contradictory nature of the grounds of
                                                                                 the judgment — Error of law: the system in
(') OJ No L 84, 27. 3 . 1987, p. 1 .                                             Martinique, voluntarily limiting imports but with an
( 2 ) OJ No L4S , 18 . 2 . 1988 , p . 15 .                                       aggregate quota ( 15% ) greater than that in
                                                                                 metropolitan France (3 % ), was necessarily of the same
                                                                                 kind as that applying in the latter territory. It is
                                                                                 profoundly contradictory to say that the arrangement
                                                                                 at national level is not of an exclusively State nature
                                                                                 whereas the local arrangement in Martinique is of a
                                                                                 State nature .
Appeal brought on 19 December 1996 by Somaco Sari
against the judgment delivered on 18 September 1996 by                     Concerning compensation
the Fourth Chamber, Extended Composition, of the Court
of First Instance of the European Communities in Case T­                   — In the light of three successive applications to the
387/94 between Asia Motor France SA and Others and                               Court of First Instance ( for declarations of failure to
          the Commission of the European Communities                             act and annulment ), it is beyond dispute that the
                          ( Case C-401 /96 P )                                   Commission has applied Community law in an
                                                                                 unlawful way, in addition by blocking the matter for
                              ( 97/C 54/21 )                                     eleven years . It would be extraordinary if such
                                                                                 conduct were incapable of constituting a wrongful act
                                                                                 or omission involving contractual liability on the part
An appeal against the judgment delivered on 18 September                         of the Commission, requiring it to make good the
1996 by the Fourth Chamber, Extended Composition, of                             damage expressly specified and clearly originating
the Court of First Instance of the European Communities                          from the very conduct objected to .
in Case T-387/94 between Asia Motor France SA, Jean­
Michel Cesbron, Monin Automobiles SA, Europe Auto                          (■) OJ No L 336 , 9 . 11 . 1996 , p . 24 .
Service (EAS ) and Somaco Sari and the Commission of the
European Communities was brought before the Court of
Justice of the European Communities on 19 December
 1996 by Somaco Sari, represented by Jean Claude
Fourgoux, of the Paris Bar, with an address for service in
Luxembourg at the Chambers of Pierrot Schiltz, 4 Rue                       Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunal
Beatrix de Bourbon .
                                                                           d'Instance, Saint-Denis , by judgments of that court of
                                                                           9 December 1996 in the cases of Société Béton Express v.
The appellant claims that the Court should :                               Direction Régionale des Douanes, Société Nouvelle de
                                                                           Concassage v. Direction Régionale des Douanes , Société
                                                                           Bourbon Lumière v. Direction Régionale des Douanes and
— set aside the part of the judgment of the Court of First                 Société Ouest Concassage v. Direction Régionale des
       Instance of 18 September 1996 (') dismissing its                             Douanes — Intervener: Region of La Réunion
       application for annulment and damages,
                                                                               ( Cases C-405/96, C-406/96, C-407/96 and C-408/96 )
                                                                                                       ( 97/C 54/22 )
— pursuant to Article 54 of the Statute of the Court of
       Justice:
                                                                           Reference has been made to the Court of Justice of the
       — annul      the     decision       of the  Commission      of      European Communities by judgments of the Tribunal
            13 October 1994 in so far as it rejects Somaco's               d'Instance ( District Court ), Saint-Denis , of 9 December
            complaint,                                                      1996 , which were received at the Court Registry on
                                                                           23 December 1996, for a preliminary ruling, in the cases
       — order the Commission, under Articles 178 and 215                  of Société Béton Express v. Direction Régionale des
                                                                           Douanes, Société Nouvelle de Concassage v. Direction
            of the Treaty, to make good the damage caused to
                                                                            Régionale de Douanes , Société Bourbon Lumière v.
            the complainant by the institutions, and,
                                                                            Direction Régionale des Douanes and Société Ouest
            consequently, to fix the quantum of damages at
            the amount of interest at the rate of 9,75 % on the             Concassage v. Direction Régionale des Douanes, on the
                                                                            following question :
            sums at which the main damage is evaluated since
            the decision of 5 December 1991 deciding not to
                                                                            Following the judgment delivered in Legros [ Case C-163/
            pursue the case up to the date of judgment,                     90 Administration des Douanes et Droits Indirects v.
                                                                            Legros and Others [ 1992] ECR I-4625J on 16 July 1992,
 — order the Commission to pay the full costs, both of                      has Law No 92-676 of 17 July 1992, adopted in
       these proceedings and of the proceedings which led to                implementation of the Decision 89/688 of the Council of
        the judgment of the Court of First Instance of                      Ministers of the European Communities of 22 December
        18 September 1996 .                                                 1989 ('), had the effect of replacing a charge having