CELEX: C1996/354/56
Language: en
Date: 1996-11-23 00:00:00
Title: Action brought on 5 June 1996 by Assicurazioni Generali SpA and Unicredito SpA against Commission of the European Communities (Case T-87/96)

23 . 11 . 96            EN                   Official Journal of the European Communities                               No C 354/27
     ORDER OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE                               by Miguel Ferrão Castelo Branco, of the Lisbon Bar, with an
                        of 4 October 1996                               address for service in Luxembourg at the Chambers of
                                                                        Francois Brouxel , 6 Rue Zithe, against Commission of the
in Case T-5 /96 : Sveriges Betodlares Centralförening and               European Communities ( Agents : Maria Teresa Figueira and
Sven Ake Henrikson v. Commission of the European                        Knut Simonsson ) — application for suspension of the
                          Communities (')
                                                                        operation of the Commission Decision of 12 December
(Common agricultural policy — Sugar beet — Regulation                   1995 ordering reimbursement of Esc 4 267 218 paid as
(EC) No 1 734/95 — Specific agricultural conversion rate —              assistance from the European Social Fund for a vocational
No conversion rate for Sweden — Action for annulment —                  training programme — the President of the Court of First
                          Inadmissibility)                              Instance has made an order on 8 October 1996 , the
                           ( 96/C 354/54 )                              operative part of which is as follows :
                  (Language of the case: English)                       1 . The application for interim measures is dismissed.
In Case T-5/96 : Sveriges Betodlares Centralförening, having
its registered office in Malmö ( Sweden ), and Sven Ake                 2.   The costs are reserved.
Henrikson, residing in Lund ( Sweden ), represented by
Otfried        Lieberknecht and Wolfgang Kirchhoff,
Rechtsanwälte, Düsseldorf, and Michael Schütte,
Rechtsanwalt, Berlin, with an address for service in
Luxembourg at the Chambers of Alex Bonn, 62 Avenue
Guillaume, against Commission of the European
Communities ( Agents : Eugenio de March and James
Macdonald Flett ) — application for the annulment of the
Commission decision contained in the letter of 27 October               Action brought on 5 June 1996 by Assicurazioni Generali
 1995 ( reference D(95 ) VI/ 1242/95 ) refusing to fix for              SpA and Unicredito SpA against Commission of the
Sweden the specific agricultural conversion rate for                                        European Communities
minimum sugar beet prices for the period from 1 January                                         ( Case T-87/96 )
 1995 to 30 June 1995 — the Court of First Instance ( First
                                                                                                  ( 96/C 354/56 )
Chamber ), composed of: A. Saggio, President, V. Tiili and
R. M. Moura Ramos , Judges; H. Jung, Registrar, has made
an order on 4 October 1996 , the operative part of which is
as follows :
                                                                                        (Language of the case: Italian)
 1 . The application is dismissed as inadmissible.                      An action against the Commission of the European
                                                                        Communities was brought before the Court of First
2 . The applicants shall bear their own costs and shall also            Instance of the European Communities on 5 June 1996 by
      bear, jointly and severally, those incurred by the                Assicurazioni Generali SpA, of Trieste ( Italy ), and
      Commission .                                                      Unicredito SpA, of Treviso ( Italy ), represented by Aurelio
                                                                        Pappalardo, of the Trapani Bar, and ClaudioTesauro, of the
 (') OJ No C 133 , 4 . 5 . 1996 .                                       Naples Bar, with an address for service in Luxembourg at
                                                                        the Chambers of Alain Lorang, 51 Rue Albert Premier.
                                                                        The applicants claim that the Court should :
     ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT                                — annul the Commission decision of 25 March 1996 in
                        of 8 October 1996                                    Case No IV/M.711 Generali/Unicredito;
 in Case T-84/96 R: Cipeke — Comercio e Industria de
 Papel , Ld .a, v. Commission of the European                           — order the Commission to pay the costs .
                             Communities
 (Socialpolicy — European Social Fund — Decision ordering                Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
partial reimbursement ofassistance for a vocational training
 programme — Interim measures — Request for suspension
           of operation — Urgency — No urgency)                          The applicants, which are insurance companies, gave notice,
                            ( 96/C 354/55 )                              under Council Regulation No 4064/89 , of the creation of a
                                                                         joint venture , called Casse e Generali Vita SpA ( CG Vita ),
                                                                         designed to operate in the life assurance market, on the
                 (Language of the case: Portuguese)                      assumption that it amounted to a concentration; they now
                                                                         contest the Commission 's refusal to treat the operation
 In Case T-84/96 R: Cipeke — Comercio e Industria de                     notified to it as falling within the scope of the
 Papel , Ld . a, whose registered office is in Lisbon, represented       abovementioned regulation .
 ---pagebreak--- No C 354/28           EN                  Official Journal of the European Communities                                   23 . 11 . 96
According to the applicants, the contested decision is based         Action brought on 10 September 1996 by MD Foods Amba
on the view that CG Vita is not functionally independent             and Others against Commission of the European
because :                                                                                        Communities
                                                                                              ( Case T-l 39/96 )
— the operation forms part of wider cooperation between                                         ( 96/C 354/57 )
     the founding undertakings;
— the functions of providing assistance on technical                                 (Language of the case: Danish)
     matters , management and distribution which those
     undertakings are to continue to carry out for the joint
     venture , in addition to their initial contributions , are
                                                                     An action against the Commission of the European
     wide-ranging and of particular financial significance ;         Communities was brought before the Court of First
                                                                     Instance of the European Communities on 10 September
— the features of CG Vita 's insurance products are not              1996 by MD Foods and by Danske Mejeriers
     such as to distinguish them appreciably from those at           Fsellesorganisation on behalf of Klovermaelk Amba,
     present marketed by Generali .                                  Logismose Produktion A/S, Mejeriselkabet Vesthimmer­
                                                                     land , Nordex Food A/S, Sinai Landmejeri and Stedager
                                                                     Andelsmejeri , represented by Georg Lett, Advokat, assisted
In the applicants ' view, however, the fact that the setting up      by N. Scandamis , Advokat, with an address for service in
of CG Vita forms part of wider cooperation between                   Luxembourg at the Chambers of Roland Assa , 1 Rue
Generali and Unicredito is irrelevant for two reasons : first,
                                                                     J. P. Brasseur .
the cooperation of other kinds remains , at the present stage,
purely hypothetical and , in the event of its taking place , such
cooperation would be the subject of appropriate agreements
                                                                     The applicants claim that the Court should :
which the parties would, if necessary, submit for appraisal
by the competent anti-trust authorities; secondly, the
envisaged forms of cooperation have not the slightest link           — declare invalid and annul Commission Regulation ( EC )
with CG Vita but relate to cases of preferential relationships           No 1107/96 of 12 June 1996 (') on the registration of
which Generali and Unicredito would enter into with each                 geographical indications and designations of origin
other in relation to their main areas of business .                      under the procedure laid down in Article 17 of Council
                                                                         Regulation ( EEC ) No 2081 /92 in so far as concerns the
                                                                         registration of feta as a protected designation of
Furthermore , CG Vita fully meets the requirement of                     origin ;
functional independence in so far as it has sufficient
financial resources, will use a sales network based on
facilities which its bank shareholders intend to provide for         — order the Commission to pay the costs .
it, and will initially have a staff of 15 . The Commission 's
restrictive approach in that connection gives rise to legal
uncertainty for the parties, for which there is no need as far       Pleas in law and main arguments adduced in support:
as protection of the market from restrictions of competition
is concerned .
                                                                     The applicants make the following submissions in support
                                                                     of their claim for annulment :
The Commission's view that the requirement of functional
independence is not met takes no account of the special              1 . Article 2 ( 3 ) of Council Regulation No 2081 /92 ( 2 ) is not
nature of the insurance market, in which a set of controls                applicable pursuant to Article 1 73 and Article 1 84 of the
and prior authorizations is designed to guarantee the                     Treaty with the result that, in so far as concerns the
independence and financial solvency of the companies                      registration of feta , Commission Regulation ( EC )
operating in that sector.                                                 No 1107/96 was adopted without a valid enabling
                                                                          provision and therefore infringes an essential procedural
                                                                          requirement within the meaning of the second
Finally, the applicants consider that the Commission failed
adequately to state the reasons for its decision, in so far as            paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty :
the alleged absence of functional independence is based not
on the information available but on the view that the                     — Article 2 ( 3 ) of Regulation ( EEC ) No 2081 /92
probability of such independence is insufficient . If on the                  infringes Article 30 of the Treaty .
other hand the Commission had expressed doubts
concerning the extent and the duration of the contributions          2 . Regulation ( EC ) No 1107/96 infringes essential
from the parent companies, the parties would have had an                  procedural requirements which , in so far as concerns the
opportunity to provide further information and possibly                   registration of feta, renders it invalid under the second
amend the agreement .                                                     paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty :
                                                                          — The Greek legislation was introduced too late for it
                                                                              to be possible for feta to be registered under
                                                                              Article 17 of Regulation ( EEC ) No 2081 /92 .