Tod's SpA and Tod's France SARL v Heyraud SA.
Date: 2005-06-30
14. It is to be remembered in this regard that it is not for the Court of Justice to rule on the applicability of provisions of national or, in this case, international law which are relevant to the outcome of the main proceedings. The Court must take account, under the division of jurisdiction between the Community Courts and the national courts, of the legislative context, as described in the order for reference, in which the question put to it is set (see, to that effect, Case C‑475/99 Ambulanz Glöckner  [2001] ECR I-8089, paragraph 10, and Case C‑153/02 Neri  [2003] ECR I-13555, paragraphs 34 and 35).
15. With regard to the purported guidance for the French courts found in their case‑law, it is sufficient to recall that the second paragraph of Article 234 EC provides that any court or tribunal of a Member State may, if it considers that a decision on a question of interpretation is necessary to enable it to give judgment, request the Court of Justice to give a ruling thereon (Case 283/81 Cilfit and Others  [1982] ECR 3415, paragraph 6).
18. It should be recalled that copyright and related rights, which by reason in particular of their effects on intra-Community trade in goods and services fall within the scope of application of the EC Treaty, are necessarily subject to the general principle of non-discrimination laid down by the first paragraph of Article 12 EC (Joined Cases C-92/92 and C-326/92 Phil Collins and Others  [1993] ECR I-5145, paragraph 27, and Case C-360/00 Ricordi [2002] ECR I-5089, paragraph 24).
19. Moreover, as the Court has consistently held, the rules regarding equality of treatment between nationals and non-nationals prohibit not only overt discrimination by reason of nationality but also all covert forms of discrimination which, by the application of other distinguishing criteria, lead to the same result (see, inter alia, Case C‑29/95 Pastoors and Trans-Cap  [1997] ECR I-285, paragraph 16, and Case C‑224/00 Commission  v Ital y [2002] ECR I-2965, paragraph 15).
27. It follows that the application of rules such as those at issue in the main proceedings is liable to operate mainly to the detriment of nationals of other Member States and thus give rise to indirect discrimination on grounds of nationality (see, to that effect, Case C-279/93 Schumacker  [1995] ECR I‑225, paragraphs 28 and 29, and Pastoors and Trans-Cap , cited above, paragraph 17).
28. However, that finding is not sufficient under the Court’s case-law to justify the conclusion that the rules at issue are incompatible with Article 12 EC. For that it would also be necessary for the application of those rules not to be justified by objective circumstances (see, to that effect, Case C-398/92 Mund & Fester [1994] ECR I‑467, paragraphs 16 and 17, and Pastoors and Trans-Cap , paragraph 19).
34. It should be recalled that it is settled case-law that implementation of the obligations imposed on Member States by the Treaty or secondary legislation cannot be made subject to a condition of reciprocity (Case C-405/01 Colegio de Oficiales de la Marina Mercante Española  [2003] ECR I-10391, paragraph 61 and the case‑law cited).