larimo/cjeu-paragraph-retrieval huggingface dataset:
Antje Köhler v Finanzamt Düsseldorf-Nord.
Date: 2005-09-15
22. Therefore, Article 8(1)(c) of the Sixth Directive seeks to determine in a uniform manner the place of taxation of supplies of goods made on board ships, aircraft or trains in the course of a journey starting and ending on Community territory and limits taxation, during the part of the transport of passengers effected within the Community, to the point of departure of the means of transport. The result is a simplified scheme of taxation which avoids, throughout the intra-Community journey, the successive application of the national VAT systems of the Member States through which the journey is made and, therefore, conflicts concerning tax jurisdiction between Member States.
25. In that connection, it must be recalled that, as regards the taxation of services on board ships, the Court has already acknowledged that the Sixth Directive does not prohibit Member States from extending the scope of their tax legislation beyond their territorial limits, so long as they do not encroach on the jurisdiction of other States (Case 283/84 Trans Tirreno Express  [1986] ECR 231, and Case C‑30/89 Commission  v France  [1990] ECR I-691, paragraph 18). Such considerations also apply in relation to taxation of supplies of goods.
United Antwerp Maritime Agencies NV v Belgische Staat and Seaport Terminals NV v Belgische Staat and United Antwerp Maritime Agencies NV.
Date: 2005-09-15
28. It is clear from Article 203(1) of the Customs Code that a customs debt on importation is incurred through the unlawful removal from customs supervision of goods liable to import duties from the moment of that removal (see, in particular, Case C-300/03 Honeywell Aerospace  [2005] ECR I-0000, paragraph 18). According to the case-law of the Court, the concept of unlawful removal from customs supervision covers any act or omission the result of which is to prevent, if only for a short time, the competent customs authority from gaining access to goods under customs supervision and from carrying out the monitoring required by Article 37(1) of the Customs Code (see, in particular, Honeywell Aerospace , paragraph 19).
30. As the Court has held ‘the Community legislature intended, since the entry into force of the Customs Code, to lay down exhaustively the conditions for determining who are the debtors of the customs debt (Case C-414/02 Spedition Ulustrans  [2004] ECR I-8633, paragraph 39, and Case C-195/03 Papsimedov and Others  [2005] ECR I-0000, paragraph 38).
31. It is apparent from the order for reference that the goods which are the subject-matter of these proceedings were presented to the relevant customs office, covered by a summary declaration pending the assignment of a customs-approved treatment or use and, therefore, had the status of goods in temporary storage. Furthermore, it is common ground that those goods were unlawfully removed from customs supervision following a theft, which took place at the time when they had just been unloaded from the vessel and placed on the quayside by Seaport Terminals.
39. It follows from that that the expression ‘the person required to fulfil the obligations arising from temporary storage of the goods’ within the meaning of the fourth indent of Article 203(3) of the Customs Code refers, after the goods in question have been unloaded, to the person who holds the goods.
Scott SA v Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 2005-10-06
33. The procedure provided for in Article 93(2) of the Treaty takes place primarily between the Commission and the Member State concerned. It is initiated against that State and not against the beneficiaries (see, to that effect, Joined Cases C‑74/00 P and C-75/00 P Falck and Acciaierie di Bolzano v Commission  [2002] ECR I-7869, paragraphs 81 and 83).
36. Having regard to the foregoing, the Court of First Instance did not interpret Article 15 of Regulation No 659/1999 incorrectly in holding that the limitation period could be interrupted by an action which has not been notified to the beneficiary of the aid, in this case the request for information of 17 January 1997.
Scania Finance France SA v Rockinger Spezialfabrik für Anhängerkupplungen GmbH & Co.
Date: 2005-10-13
15. As a preliminary point it must be recalled that, although according to its preamble the Brussels Convention is intended to secure the simplification of formalities governing the reciprocal recognition and enforcement of judgments of courts or tribunals, it is settled case-law of the Court that it is not permissible to achieve that aim by undermining in any way the right to a fair hearing (Case 49/84 Debaecker and Plouvier  [1985] ECR 1779, paragraph 10; Case C-305/88 Lancray  [1990] ECR I-2725, paragraph 21; and Case C-7/98 Krombach  [2000] ECR I-1935, paragraph 43).
16. From that point of view, Article 27(2) of the Brussels Convention aims to ensure that a judgment is not recognised or enforced under the Convention if the defendant has not had an opportunity of defending himself before the court first seised (Case 166/80 Klomps  [1981] ECR 1593, paragraph 9).
18. The Brussels Convention does not harmonise the different systems of service abroad of legal documents which are in force in the Contracting States (Case 228/81 Pendy Plastic  [1982] ECR 2723, paragraph 13 and Lancray , paragraph 28). However, the first paragraph of Article IV of the Protocol states that judicial documents drawn up  in one Contracting State which have to be served on persons in another Contracting State are to be transmitted in accordance with the procedures laid down in the conventions concluded between the Contracting States.
23. The exhaustive nature of the provisions of Article IV of the Protocol is confirmed by the fact that, in order to ensure that the rights of a defendant who fails to enter an appearance are effectively protected, the Brussels Convention confers jurisdiction to determine whether the document instituting the proceedings was duly served not only, at the stage of recognition and enforcement, on the court of the Member State in which enforcement is sought, but also, at the stage of the determination of jurisdiction, on the court of the State in which the judgment was given, which is required by virtue of Article 20 of the Convention to undertake such an assessment ( Pendy Plastic , paragraph 13 and Lancray , paragraph 28).
30. It follows from all of the foregoing considerations that the answer to the first question must be that Article 27(2) of the Brussels Convention and the first paragraph of Article IV of the Protocol must be interpreted as meaning that, where a relevant international convention is applicable between the State in which the judgment is given and the State in which recognition is sought, the question whether the document instituting the proceedings was duly served on a defendant in default of appearance must be determined in the light of the provisions of that convention, without prejudice to the use of direct transmission between public officers where the State in which recognition is sought has not officially objected, in accordance with the second paragraph of Article IV of the Protocol.
The second question
Richard Dahms GmbH v Fränkischer Weinbauverband eV.
Date: 2005-10-13
13. It should be recalled, as a preliminary point, that, pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 249 EC, regulations have general application and are directly applicable in all Member States. It is settled case-law that, owing to their very nature and their place in the system of sources of Community law, regulations operate to confer rights on individuals which the national courts have a duty to protect (see, inter alia, Case 34/73 Variola  [1973] ECR 981, paragraph 8, and Case C‑253/00 Muñoz and Superior Fruiticola  [2002] ECR I-7289, paragraph 27).
14. The national courts, whose task it is to apply the provisions of Community law in areas within their jurisdiction, must ensure that they take full effect (see, inter alia, Case 106/77 Simmenthal  [1978] ECR 629, paragraph 16; Case C-213/89 Factortame and Others  [1990] ECR I-2433, paragraph 19; Case C-453/99 Courage and Crehan  [2001] ECR I-6297, paragraph 25; and Muñoz and Superior Fruiticola , paragraph 28).
Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Sweden.
Date: 2005-10-20
66. In any event, it is settled case-law that a Member State cannot rely on a possible infringement of Community law by another Member State in order to justify its own default. Therefore, a Member State may not under any circumstances unilaterally adopt, on its own authority, corrective or defensive measures designed to obviate any such failure, but is bound to act within the context of the procedures and legal remedies laid down to that effect by the Treaty (see, to that effect, inter alia, Case 232/78 Commission  v France  [1979] ECR 2729, paragraph 9; Case 325/82 Commission  v Germany  [1984] ECR 777, paragraph 11; Case C-146/89 Commission  v United Kingdom  [1991] ECR I-3533, paragraph 47; and Case C-5/94 Hedley Lomas  [1996] ECR I-2553, paragraph 20).
67. Moreover, the Swedish Government’s argument that imports of meat from other Member States have not been affected by the application of the national measure in dispute must be rejected in the light of the Court’s case-law, according to which failure to comply with an obligation imposed by a rule of Community law is itself sufficient to constitute a breach, and the fact that such a failure had no adverse effects is irrelevant (see Case C-233/00 Commission  v France  [2003] ECR I-6625, paragraph 62).
Commission of the European Communities v Portuguese Republic.
Date: 2005-10-20
23. Article 4d of Directive 90/388 which requires that Member States do not discriminate between the providers of public telecommunications networks in the grant of rights of way for the provision of those networks, is a specific application of the general principle of equality (see, by analogy, in regard to Article 7(5) of Directive 96/92/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 December 1996 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity (OJ 1997 L 27, p. 20), Case C-17/03 VEMW and Others  [2005] ECR I-0000, paragraph 47).
24. The prohibition of discrimination, which is one of the fundamental principles of Community law, requires that comparable situations should not be treated in a different manner unless such a distinction can be objectively justified (see, inter alia, Case C-280/93 Germany  v Council [1994] ECR I-4973, paragraph 67).
Transport Maatschappij Traffic BV v Staatssecretaris van Economische Zaken.
Date: 2005-10-20
28. It should therefore be concluded that, while infringement of Article 221(1) of the CCC by the customs authorities of a Member State may hinder the recovery of the amount of the duties legally owed or the collection of interest for late payment, the fact remains that such an infringement has no influence on the existence of those duties.
29. In light of all these considerations, the answer to the question referred must be that, for the purposes of the first subparagraph of Article 236(1) of the CCC, import duties or export duties are legally owed where a customs duty has been incurred within the conditions laid down by Chapter 2 of Title VII of that Code and where the amount of those duties could be determined by the application of the Common Customs Tariff in accordance with the provisions of Title II of that Code.
The amount of the import duties or export duties remains legally owed within the meaning of the first subparagraph of Article 236(1) of the CCC even where that amount has not been communicated to the debtor in accordance with Article 221(1) of the Code.
Costs
Crailsheimer Volksbank eG v Klaus Conrads and Others.
Date: 2005-10-25
14. Finally, the Court observed that the minimum period of seven days allowed for cancellation must be calculated from the time the consumer receives the notice concerning his right of cancellation from the trader. In paragraph 48 of the judgment in Heininger  it held that the doorstep-selling directive precludes the national legislature from imposing a time-limit of one year from the conclusion of the contract within which the right of cancellation provided for in Article 5 of that Directive may be exercised, where the consumer has not received the information specified in Article 4.
The national legislation
16. In the version applicable at the material time, Paragraph 1(1) of the HWiG provides:
‘Where the customer was induced to make a declaration of intention to conclude a contract for a service for valuable consideration:
1. by oral negotiations at his place of work or in a private home,
…
that declaration of intention takes effect only if the customer does not give written notice revoking it within a period of one week’.
18. The German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch) provides in Paragraph 123, which concerns avoidance for deceit or threats:
‘1. A person may avoid a declaration of will that has been induced by deceit or by an unlawful threat.
2. If the deceit is perpetrated by a third person, a declaration that had to be made to another person may be avoided only if the latter person knew or ought to have known of the deceit. …’
The disputes in the main proceedings
24. The borrowers also discontinued their payments to the Bank.
Trapeza tis Ellados AE v Banque Artesia.
Date: 2005-10-27
25. As set out in Article 67 of the Treaty, the free movement of capital entails the abolition of restrictions on the movement of capital belonging to persons resident in Member States and any discrimination based on the nationality or on the place of residence of the parties or on the place where such capital is invested. The First Directive provides, for the implementation of Article 67, for the complete liberalisation of certain capital movements and is intended to bring about the elimination of administrative obstacles which, although not taking the form of exchange authorisations or affecting the acquisition of foreign securities, none the less constitute a hindrance to the widest and swiftest liberalisation of capital movements between the Member States which, according to the preamble to the First Directive, is necessary for the attainment of the objectives of the European Community (see Case 157/85 Brugnoni and Ruffinengo [1986] ECR 2013, paragraphs 21 and 22).
26. In that respect, even if ‘securities normally dealt in on the money market’ fall within List D, Item VI of that annex, the First Directive does not lay down any definition of that term. On the other hand, the First Directive refers to ‘securities dealt in on a stock exchange’ in List B, Item IV A of the same annex and in the Explanatory Notes, which do lay down a definition thereof. According to those notes, which should be regarded as forming an integral part of that directive (see Case 143/86 East and Others [1988] ECR 625, paragraph 11), ‘securities dealt in on a stock exchange’ are ‘securities the dealings in which are controlled by regulations, and prices for which are regularly published, either by official stock exchanges (quoted securities) or by other bodies attached to a stock exchange, for example committees of banks (unquoted securities)’. As the Commission points out, that definition means that the Community legislature accorded importance to the rules of operation of the stock market, in particular on the basis of the provisions guaranteeing the transparency of the operation of the stock market and the publication of prices of securities dealt in.
Commission of the European Communities v Republic of Austria.
Date: 2005-10-27
42. In those circumstances, the Commission is wrong to rely on case-law according to which Member States may not create a category of dental practitioners which does not correspond to any category provided for by the directives in question (Case C‑40/93 Commission v Italy [1995] ECR I-1319, paragraph 24). Unlike the Member State concerned by that judgment, the Republic of Austria, first, has not created a new category of dental practitioners, but has simply maintained an existing category, and, secondly, specialists in dental surgery do not constitute a  category of dental practitioners which is not provided for by the Recognition and Coordination Directives. They are, on the contrary, specifically covered by Article 19b of the first of those directives.
Commission of the European Communities v Grand Duchy of Luxemburg.
Date: 2005-10-27
5. Article 92(2) of the Rules of Procedure provides that the Court may at any time of its own motion consider whether there exists any absolute bar to proceeding with a case.
7. As the Court has held, in order for a letter of formal notice to be issued, a prior failure by the Member State concerned to fulfil an obligation owed by it must be alleged (see Order in Case C-341/97 Commission v Netherlands  [2000] ECR I‑6611, paragraph 18, and Case C-230/99 Commission v France [2001] ECR I‑1169, paragraph 32). Even if that Member State does not consider it necessary to avail itself of the opportunity to submit its observations, such an opportunity constitutes an essential guarantee required by the EC Treaty and amounts to an essential procedural requirement in proceedings relating to the finding of a failure on the part of a Member State. The letter of formal notice cannot therefore relate to failure to transpose a directive in respect of which the time-limit for implementation had not yet expired (see Case 31/69 Commission v Italy [1970] ECR 25, paragraphs 12 to 14).
9. By contrast, as regards the fields to which the Directive applies with the exception of that of doctors in training, it is settled case-law that the question whether a Member State has failed to fulfil its obligations must be determined by reference to the situation obtaining in the Member State at the end of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion and that the Court cannot take account of any subsequent changes (see, in particular, Case C-323/01 Commission  v Italy [2002] ECR I‑4711, paragraph 8, and Case C-322/00 Commission v Netherlands [2003] ECR I-11267, paragraph 50).
Commission of the European Communities v Federal Republic of Germany.
Date: 2005-11-10
31. As the Advocate General notes in point 25 of his opinion, and as confirmed by the demonstration carried out by the Commission’s agent at the time of the hearing, making a cigarette from the manufactured components of ‘West Single Packs’ involves easy, non-industrial handling, consisting merely in inserting the component, in its aluminium wrapping, into a cigarette paper tube, and then pulling off the wrapping leaving the tobacco inside the tube.
32. It follows that the rolls of tobacco in question are slipped into the cigarette tubes by simple non-industrial handling. Accordingly, all the criteria set out in Article 4(1)(b) of Directive 95/59 are met.
Criminal proceedings against Knud Grøngaard and Allan Bang.
Date: 2005-11-22
22. Directive 89/592 prohibits insider dealing with the aim of protecting investor confidence in the secondary market for transferable securities and, consequently, of ensuring the proper functioning of that market.
23. Thus, Article 2 of Directive 89/592 prohibits any person, who, by virtue, in particular, of his membership of administrative bodies or by virtue of the exercise of his employment, profession or duties, possesses inside information, that is, information of a precise nature which has not been made public and which would be likely to have a significant effect on the price of one or more transferable securities, from taking advantage of that information by acquiring or disposing of those transferable securities.
29. In addition, it is for the referring court to ensure compliance with the principle of legal certainty in the interpretation, in the light of a directive’s wording and purpose, of the national law adopted in order to implement it (see Joined Cases C‑74/95 and C‑129/95 X  [1996] ECR I‑6609, paragraph 26).
30. It is also appropriate to note that the obligation on the national court to refer to the content of the directive when interpreting the relevant rules of its national law is not unlimited, particularly where such interpretation would have the effect, on the basis of the directive and independently of legislation adopted for its implementation, of determining or aggravating the liability in criminal law of persons who act in contravention of its provisions (see, in particular, Case 80/86 Kolpinghuis Nijmegen  [1987] ECR 3969, paragraph 13, and X , cited above, paragraph 24).
33. The second to the fifth recitals in the preamble to Directive 89/592 state that it is intended to ensure the proper functioning of the secondary market in transferable securities and to protect investors’ confidence, which depends, in particular, on their being placed on an equal footing and protected against the improper use of inside information.
Deutsches Milch-Kontor GmbH v Hauptzollamt Hamburg-Jonas.
Date: 2005-11-24
32. As regards the ninth recital in the preamble to Regulation No 1706/89, it is sufficient to recall that the preamble to a Community act has no binding legal force and cannot be relied on either as a ground for derogating from the actual provisions of the act in question or for interpreting those provisions in a manner clearly contrary to their wording (Case C-162/97 Nilsson and Others  [1998] ECR I-7477, paragraph 54, and Case C-308/97 Manfredi  [1998] ECR I-7685, paragraph 30).
Georg Schwarz v Bürgermeister der Landeshauptstadt Salzburg.
Date: 2005-11-24
28. The prohibition of measures having equivalent effect to quantitative restrictions set out in Article 28 EC covers all measures which are capable of hindering, directly or indirectly, actually or potentially, intra-Community trade (see, in particular, Case 8/74 Dassonville  [1974] ECR 837, paragraph 5; Case 178/84 Commission  v Germany  ( Beer purity ) [1987] ECR 1227, paragraph 27; Case C‑192/01 Commission  v Denmark  [2003] ECR I-9693, paragraph 39; and Case C‑270/02 Commission  v Italy  [2004] ECR I-1559, paragraph 18).
30. However, the Court has consistently held that a national rule which hinders the free movement of goods is not necessarily contrary to Community law if it may be justified by one of the public-interest grounds set out in Article 30 EC or by one of the overriding requirements laid down by the Court’s case-law where the national rules are applicable without distinction (see, to this effect, Case 120/78 Rewe-Zentral  ( Cassis de Dijon ) [1979] ECR 649, paragraph 8, and Commission  v Italy , cited above, paragraph 21).
32. As regards the placing of foodstuffs on the market, the Court has held that it is for the Member States, in the absence of harmonisation, to decide on their intended level of protection of human health and life, always taking into account the requirements of the free movement of goods within the Community (see, to that effect, Case 174/82 Sandoz  [1983] ECR 2445, paragraph 16; Joined Cases C-1/90 and C-176/90 Aragonesa de Publicidad Exterior et Publivía  [1991] ECR I-4151, paragraph 16; Case C-271/92 LPO  [1993] ECR I-2899, paragraph 10; Commission v Denmark , paragraph 42; and Case C-41/02 Commission  v Netherlands  [2004] ECR I-11375, paragraph 42).
33. However, the measures taken must be such as to attain one or more objectives referred to in Article 30 EC, in the present case the protection of public health, and they must be proportionate, namely, not go beyond what is necessary to attain the objective pursued (see, in particular, LPO , paragraph 12, and Case C-373/92 Commission  v Belgium  [1993] ECR I-3107, paragraph 8).
37. Moreover, it must be noted that nothing in the file leads to the conclusion that the public health grounds relied on to justify Paragraph 2 of the Confectionery Hygiene Regulation have been diverted from their proper purpose and used in such a way as to create discrimination in respect of goods originating in other Member States or indirectly to protect certain national products (see, to this effect, Case 34/79 Henn and Darby  [1979] ECR 3795, paragraph 21, and Aragonesa de Publicidad Exterior et Publivía , paragraph 20).