CELEX: C1999/086/42
Language: en
Date: 1999-03-27 00:00:00
Title: Action brought on 11 January 1999 by Elbe-Stahlwerke Feralpi GmbH against the Commission of the European Communities (Case T-6/99)

C 86/22               EN                   Official Journal of the European Communities                               27.3.1999
Ð annul the decision of the European Commission by                    Action brought on 11 January 1999 by Elbe-Stahlwerke
    which it considered that the dependent child                      Feralpi GmbH against the Commission of the European
    allowances paid pursuant of Article 67(3) of the Staff                                    Communities
    Regulations from January 1997 to June 1998,
                                                                                              (Case T-6/99)
    amounting to a global sum of LUF 181 446, were not
    due and payable, and that it was authorised, under                                       (1999/C 86/42)
    Article 85 of the Staff Regulations and on the basis of
    Article 43 of Annex VIII thereto, to recover that sum
    by way of deduction from the retirement pension paid                            (Language of the case: German)
    monthly by the European Commission to the
    applicant;
                                                                      An action against the Commission of the European
Ð declare unlawful, if not unjustified, the suspension by             Communities was brought before the Court of First
    the Commission on 14 July 1988 of the grant of the                Instance of the European Communities on 11 January
    dependent child allowance to the applicant pursuant               1999 by Elbe-Stahlwerke Feralpi GmbH, of Riesa,
    to Article 67(3) of the Staff Regulations;                        Germany, represented by Wolf Michael Kühne of Sozietät
                                                                      Schürmann & Partner, Frankfurt am Main and Milan,
                                                                      with an address for service in Luxembourg at the
Ð declare unlawful and unjustified the application by the
                                                                      Chambers      of    Schaeffer   Hangel     Dennewald     &
    Commission of the rule provided for in Article 85 of
                                                                      Hellenbrand, 12, Avenue de la Porte-Neuve, Luxembourg.
    the Staff Regulations concerning recovery of undue
    payments;
                                                                      The applicant claims that the Court should:
Ð order the European Commission to repay to the
    applicant the sums deducted from her retirement
    pension from July 1998 onwards, up to the total sum               1. order the Commission pursuant to Article 23 of the
    of LUF 181 446;                                                       ECSC Statute of the Court of Justice to produce
                                                                          various records (papers, minutes etc.) documenting the
Ð order the European Commission to pay the costs.                         circumstances in which the contested decision was
                                                                          adopted;
Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
                                                                      2. authorise the applicant to inspect the documents
The applicant, a retired official, is the mother of a son                 produced;
who suffers from a serious illness. Since 30 June 1993 she
has been in receipt of a double dependent child allowance
pursuant to Article 67(3) of the Staff Regulations, since
                                                                      3. declare the Commission's decision of 11 November
her son lives with his parents. Upon verifying the request
                                                                          1998 on German aid to ESF Elbe-Stahlwerke Feralpi
for extension of that allowance, the Commission found
                                                                          GmbH, Riesa, Sachsen, to be null and void;
that the applicant's son had been married since 1991; it
therefore adopted the contested decisions.
                                                                      4. order the Commission to pay the costs of the
In support of her application, the applicant pleads                       proceedings.
infringement of:
Ð Article 67(3) of the Staff Regulations, in that a                   Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
    decision taken under that Article must be duly
    supported by a statement of reasons;
                                                                      The contested decision declared the investment aid of
Ð the general principle that an administrative decision               DEM 8 173 million, the additional investment of
    must contain a statement of the reasons on which it is            DEM 1 236 million and the loan containing an aid
    based;                                                            element of DEM 12 million granted in 1995 by Germany
                                                                      to the applicant, a steel company, to be incompatible with
                                                                      Decision No 2496/96/ECSC and with the common market
Ð the principle that an administrative decision may not               for coal and steel. It further found that the aid element
    have retroactive effect, save in exceptional                      contained in the loan awarded at the end of 1994 was not
    circumstances duly justified by a statement of reasons;           authorised for working capital advances of DEM 7,2
    and                                                               million and DEM 4,8 million and was therefore also
                                                                      incompatible with the decision cited above and the
Ð Article 85 of the Staff Regulations, in that the                    common market.
    provisions of that Article have been applied without
    its having been shown that the conditions governing
    its applicability are fulfilled in the present case.              The applicant pleads infringement of the Treaty or of rules
                                                                      of law relating to its application, and misuse of powers
                                                                      pursuant to paragraph 1 of Article 33 of the ECSC Treaty.
 ---pagebreak--- 27.3.1999             EN                 Official Journal of the European Communities                                   C 86/23
It claims that the Commission failed to appreciate that the             duties paid by the applicant prior to the adoption of
end product produced by the applicant, namely                           that regulation under the powers vested in the Council
hammer-forged reinforcement steel in rings as a cold-form               by the EC Treaty; and
end product of the semi-finished product, wire rod, is not
one of the products falling within Annex 1 (definition of
the expressions coal and steel') of the ECSC Treaty.               Ð order the Council to pay the legal costs and expenses
Under Code 4400 of Annex I, only wire rod' is included                 of the procedure.
as a product of the hot finishing stage of the rolling mill.
                                                                    Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
Hammer-forged reinforcement steel in rings' falls within
the sweep-up provisions for particular areas of steel
production which do not fall within the ECSC Treaty;
those provisions expressly specify the drawing' of wire           In 1993 the applicant, a producer of leather handbags,
rod'.                                                               reached an agreement with Lucci Creation Limited, a
                                                                    Hong Kong-based company with manufacturing facilities
                                                                    in China, to produce its leather handbags. These products
In applying the ECSC Treaty to aid for activities not               were manufactured using leather and other materials
covered by the Treaty (Article 81 of the ECSC Treaty read           which the company purchased from European suppliers.
together with Annex I) the Commission, in the contested
decision, not only interpreted the Treaty but amended it
without complying with the requisite procedures of Article          By Regulation (EC) No 209/97 (1) the Commission
81(2) or Article 95(1) of the ECSC Treaty). Furthermore,            imposed a provisional anti-dumping duty on imports into
the Commission misused its powers in abusing its                    the Community of handbags originating in the People's
authority to apply Article 4(c) of the ECSC Treaty and the          Republic of China. Definitive anti-dumping duties were
Steel Aid Code in that it extended the latter to production         subsequently imposed under Council Regulation (EC)
activities falling outside the scope of Annex I to Article 81       No 1567/97 (2).
of the ECSC Treaty without following the procedure
under the second paragraph of Article 81 or Article 95.
                                                                    On 5 November 1998, the contested Council Regulation
                                                                    (EC) No 2380/98 (3) was adopted. This regulation
Finally, the applicant claims that the decision was                 confirmed that no dumping was found on the transactions
unlawfully made restroactive and that the principles of             between the applicant and Lucci Creation Limited and
the protection of legitimate expectations and non-                  that, as a result, both were entitled to an individual
discrimination were infringed.                                      dumping margin of 0,0 %.
                                                                    The request for retroactive effect for these rates of
                                                                    anti-dumping duty was rejected on two grounds:
Action brought on 11 January 1999 by Medici Grimm KG
         against the Council of the European Union                  Ð the prospective nature of measures adopted further to
                                                                        review investigations, and
                         (Case T-7/99)
                        (1999/C 86/43)
                                                                    Ð the unwarranted bonus' that exporting producers
                                                                        cooperating in the review would receive despite
                (Language of the case: English)                         non-cooperation in the initial investigation.
An action against the Council of the European Union was             Between 3 August 1997 and 6 November 1998 the
brought before the Court of First Instance of the European          applicant paid a total of DEM 1 456 452 in anti-dumping
Communities on 11 January 1999 by Medici Grimm KG,                  duties.
represented by Robert M. MacLean, Solicitor, of Cameron
McKenna and Paul McGarry, with an address for service
in Luxembourg at the Chambers of Arendt and
Medernach, 8Ð10 Rue Mathias Hardt.                                  The applicant submits that the contested regulation should
                                                                    be annulled in so far as it fails to grant retroactive effect
                                                                    and reimbursement of the anti-dumping duties paid by the
The applicant claims that the Court should:                         applicant on the following grounds:
Ð partially annul Council Regulation (EC) No 2380/98                Ð The Council infringed a rule of law relating to the
     on the grounds that the Council failed to grant                    application of the EC Treaty by infringing
     retrospective reimbursement of the anti-dumping                    fundamental principles and express provisions of