CELEX: C1996/210/46
Language: en
Date: 1996-07-20 00:00:00
Title: Action brought on 14 May 1996 by Dimitrios Polivios, residing in Piraeus, against the European Union and the Commission of the European Communities (Case T-68/96)

No C 210/ 18          EN                 Official Journal of the European Communities                                    20 . 7 . 96
   the applicant the opportunity to comment on the replies          Action brought on 14 May 1996 by Dimitrios Polivios,
   received from Irish glass companies to the Article 1 1           residing in Piraeus, against the European Union and the
   request for information made by the Commission itself.                   Commission of the European Communities
   Those replies contained important information relating                                  ( Case T-68/96 )
   to the applicant's arguments and were communicated to
   its counsel on various dates, the final replies being                                     ( 96/C 210/46 )
   received on 12 February 1996 . Since the contested
   decision was adopted on 21 February, the
   aforementioned replies therefore formed the basis for                           (Language of the case: Greek)
   it .
                                                                    An action against the European Union and the Commission
                                                                    of the European Communities was brought before the
— Infringement of an essential procedural requirement and           Court of First Instance of the European Communities on
   of the right to a fair hearing. In addressing a request for      14 May 1996 by Dimitrios Polivios , residing in Piraeus,
   information, which was not drafted in fair and objective         represented by Konstantinos Zangas, of the Athens Bar,
  terms, to the party which was the subject of the                  with an address for service in Luxembourg at the Chambers
  complaint, the Commission violated the basic                      of Catherine Thill-Camitaki, 15 Avenue du Bois .
  procedural guarantees provided by Community law and
  the applicant's right to a fair hearing. It is apparent from
  that request for information that the Commission had             The applicant claims that the Court should :
  effectively made up its mind on the applicant's
  complaint and investigated the matter purely for the
  sake of form . For this reason, the investigation was not        — déclaré his action admissible ,
  carried out with due care , seriousness and diligence .
                                                                   — require the defendants to pay him ECU 510 840 or, in
                                                                        the alternative ECU 425 700, with legal interest from
                                                                        8 August 1993 until the claim is settled,
— Infringement of an essential procedural requirement and
  of the principle of legal certainty, in so far as the
  Commission adopted the contested decision in the form            — order the defendant to pay the costs .
  of a covering letter signed by the Commissioner for
  competition, summarizing the procedure which led to
  the rejection of the complaint and referring, for the            Pleas in law and main arguments
  reasoning of the decision, to a separate document. As a
  result of this unusual form, the applicant has no way of
  knowing if the competent Commissioner ever saw or                The applicant, the owner of a fishing vessel registered in
  adopted the reasoning for rejecting its complaint or even        Piraeus, transferred ownership of his vessel to a joint
  if the reasoning existed in written form at the time when        enterprise in Senegal , and requested payment of the
  the Commissioner signed the covering letter .                    Community financial aid provided to that effect in Council
                                                                   Regulation ( EEC ) No 3944/90 ( OJ No L 380, 1990,
                                                                   P - D­
                                                                   He claims that in the calculation of that aid he suffered
— Manifest error of appraisal . According to the applicant,
  the Commission incorrectly defined the relevant product          damage, since the competent services of the European Union
  market as the market for float glass, because the                and of Greece, as a result of serious negligence , did not take
  structure of supply and conditions of competition in the         into account the tonnage of the vessel resulting from the
  market for 4 mm float glass are different from the               application of the rules on tonnage measurement provided
  structure of supply and conditions of competition in the         in the London Convention, but rather the much smaller
  market for other thicknesses of float glass . Furthermore,       tonnage resulting from application of the Greek rules on
                                                                   measurement .
  the Commission should have considered Ireland, and
  not the whole Community , as the relevant geographical
  market, given the particular conditions of competition
                                                                   He claims that the European Union should compensate him
  prevalent in the Irish market for 4 mm float glass .
                                                                   by paying in full the additional aid which would have been
                                                                   paid had the measurement been carried out on the basis of
                                                                   the London Convention or, at least, a proportion of the
                                                                   amount of the additional aid , in view of the fact that part of
                                                                   the aid is granted from national funds .