CELEX: C2002/056/25
Language: en
Date: 2002-03-02 00:00:00
Title: Case T-305/01: Action brought on 7 December 2001 by Thalassa Seafoods SA against Commission of the European Communities

2.3.2002               EN                     Official Journal of the European Communities                                       C 56/13
—     in most cases, the extermination of the entire herd where          —     order the Commission to pay all the costs.
      a cow is found to be infected;
—     a decrease in consumption of beef and a lack of consumer
      confidence resulting from the unpopularity of veal in the
      market, with the consequent direct economic cost arising           Pleas in law and main arguments
      from the repercussions of reports in the media of the
      discovery of each new case of mad cow disease or of
      persons afflicted by Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in any               The applicant in the present case, a company incorporated
      Member State of the European Union; and                            under Belgian law carrying on business as importer into the
                                                                         Community of frozen fishery products originating in China,
—     the removal of the spinal column in calves aged over               has brought an action seeking compensation for damage
      12 months.                                                         allegedly suffered as a result of the immediate entry into force
                                                                         of Commission Decision 2000/86/EC of 21 December 1999
                                                                         laying down special conditions governing imports of fishery
The applicants maintain that the abovementioned damage, to               products originating in China and repealing Decision
which must be added the collateral and non-material damage               97/368/EC (1), with no transitional period applicable to goods
with which they have also been faced, results primarily from a           covered by contracts in force at the date of its publication.
lack of action, alternatively tardy and inadequate action, on            Annex B of that decision fundamentally amended the list of
the part of the Council and the Commission, which allowed                list of Chinese establishments approved for the export of
BSE to develop into the most serious agricultural and food               fishery products to the Community to such an extent that
crisis to affect the Union since its creation. The absence of a          almost all the suppliers with whom the applicant had con-
resolute policy to control that disease with a view to its total         cluded its contracts were no longer listed.
eradication, which allowed it to spread from the United
Kingdom throughout Europe, constitutes an unlawful act on
the part of the Community institutions in question, since those
institutions had the requisite powers, from the appearance of            From September 1999 to January 2000, the applicant com-
the very first signs of the crisis, to adopt all the legal measures      pany concluded with several Chinese suppliers a number of
needed to resolve it.                                                    purchase contracts for several containers of frozen prawns
                                                                         valued in excess of USD 2 000 000. Those contracts all
                                                                         stipulated that the goods were to be shipped between the end
                                                                         of September 1999 and mid-April 2000.
                                                                         In support of its arguments, the applicant claims:
Action brought on 7 December 2001 by Thalassa Sea-                       —     that the Commission acted wrongly inasmuch as Decision
foods SA against Commission of the European Communi-                           2000/86/EC was not published until 2 February 2000,
                                ties                                           although it was of immediate application and should
                                                                               therefore have been published without delay, that is to
                         (Case T-305/01)                                       say by 22 December 1999 at the latest, in order to allow
                                                                               traders to take all appropriate measures in order to
                                                                               minimise their losses;
                          (2002/C 56/25)
                                                                         —     breach of the principle of legitimate expectations;
                   (Language of the case: French)
                                                                         —     breach of the principle of proportionality in that the
                                                                               Commission itself, on the one hand, introduced tran-
                                                                               sitional measures, by Decision 2000/300/EC of 18 April
An action against the Commission of the European Communi-                      2000 amending Decision 2000/86/EC(2) and, on the
ties was brought before the Court of First Instance of the                     other, published on 11 September 2000 a new list in
European Communities on 7 December 2001 by Thalassa                            which the supplier of the goods under the purchase
Seafoods SA, whose registered office is at Antwerp (Belgium),                  contracts which were annulled was again admitted as an
represented by Jean-Pierre Brusseleers, lawyer.                                approved establishment.
The applicant claims that the Court should:
                                                                         (1) OJ 2000 L 26, p. 26.
—     order the Commission to pay it EUR 256 179,10 in                   (2) OJ 2000 L 97, p. 15.
      damages, together with interest at the statutory rate of
      8 % per annum as from the date on which notice was
      served;