Moser Baer India Ltd v Council of the European Union.
Date: 2009-09-03
24. It must be borne in mind that the Court may, of its own motion, raise the objection that a party has no interest in bringing or in maintaining an appeal on the ground that an event subsequent to the judgment of the Court of First Instance removes the prejudicial effect thereof as regards the appellant, and declare the appeal inadmissible or devoid of purpose for that reason. For an appellant to have an interest in bringing proceedings the appeal must be likely, if successful, to procure an advantage to the party bringing it (see Case C‑19/93 P Rendo and Others v Commission [1995] ECR I‑3319, paragraph 13, and order in Case C‑503/07 P Saint‑Gobain Glass Deutschland v Commission [2008] ECR I‑2217, paragraph 48).
25. In the present case, however, it should be noted that the appellant’s interest in seeking to have the judgment under appeal set aside and, indirectly, the annulment of the contested regulation, cannot be denied on the ground that that regulation no longer has any effect for the future. Such a setting aside and annulment is of itself capable of having legal consequences, in particular by preventing a repetition by the Community institutions of the practice complained of (see, to that effect, Case 53/85 AKZO Chemie and AKZO Chemie UK v Commission [1986] ECR 1965, paragraph 21).
31. In that regard, it should be recalled that, according to settled case‑law, it is clear from Article 225 EC and the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice that the Court of First Instance has exclusive jurisdiction, first, to find the facts, except where the substantive inaccuracy of its findings is apparent from the documents submitted to it, and, second, to assess those facts. When the Court of First Instance has found or assessed the facts, the Court of Justice has jurisdiction under Article 225 EC to review the legal characterisation of those facts by the Court of First Instance and the legal conclusions it has drawn from them (see, inter alia, Case C‑551/03 P General Motors v Commission [2006] ECR I‑3173, paragraph 51; Case C‑266/06 P Evonik Degussa v Commission , judgment of 6 April 2008, not published in the ECR, paragraph 72; and Joined Cases C‑101/07 P and C‑110/07 P Coop de Fra nce bétail et viande and Others v Commission [2008] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 58).
32. The Court of Justice thus has no jurisdiction to establish the facts or, in principle, to examine the evidence which the Court of First Instance accepted in support of those facts. Provided that the evidence has been properly obtained and the general principles of law and the rules of procedure in relation to the burden of proof and the taking of evidence have been observed, it is for the Court of First Instance alone to assess the value which should be attached to the evidence produced to it. Save where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted, that appraisal does not therefore constitute a point of law which is subject as such to review by the Court of Justice (see, inter alia, General Motors v Commission , paragraph 52; Evonik Degussa v Commission ; paragraph 73, and Coop de France bétail et viande and Others v Commission , paragraph 59).
33. It should, in addition, be noted that a distortion must be obvious from the documents on the Court’s file, without there being any need to carry out a new assessment of the facts and the evidence (see, inter alia, General Motors v Commission , paragraph 54; Evonik Degussa v Commission , paragraph 74; and Coop de France de bétail et viande , paragraph 60).
34. By contrast, the question whether the Court of First Instance could, properly in law, conclude from those facts that the Community institutions had failed neither in their duty to act diligently nor in their duty to state reasons is a question of law subject to the review of the Court of Justice on appeal (see Case C‑188/96 P Commission v V [1997] ECR I‑6561, paragraph 24; Joined Cases C‑189/02 P, C‑202/02 P, C‑205/02 P to C‑208/02 P and C‑213/02 P Dansk Rørindustri and Others v Commission [2005] ECR I‑5425, paragraph 453; and Case C‑405/07 P Netherlands v Commission [2008] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 44).
49. According to settled case‑law, it follows from Article 225 EC, the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 112(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice that an appeal must indicate precisely the contested elements of the judgment which the appellant seeks to have set aside and also the legal arguments specifically advanced in support of the appeal (see, inter alia, Case C‑499/03 P Biegi Nahrungsmittel and Commonfood  v Commission  [2005] ECR I‑1751, paragraph 37; Case C‑68/05 P Koninklijke Coöperatie Cosun v Commission [2006] ECR I‑10367, paragraph 54; and order of 15 May 2007 in Case C‑420/05 P Ricosmos v Commission , not published in the ECR, paragraph 64).
50. Accordingly, an appeal which merely repeats or reproduces verbatim the pleas in law and arguments previously submitted to the Court of First Instance, including those based on facts expressly rejected by that Court, does not satisfy the requirements to state reasons under the provisions referred to in the preceding paragraph (see, inter alia, Biegi Nahrungsmittel and Commonfood  v Commission , paragraph 38; Koninklijke Coöperatie Cosun  v Commission , paragraph 54; and order in Ricosmos  v Commission , paragraph 71). Such an appeal amounts in reality to no more than a request for re-examination of the application submitted to the Court of First Instance, which the Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction to undertake (Case C‑352/98 P Bergaderm and Goupil  v Commission [2000] ECR I‑5291, paragraph 35, and Case C‑76/01 P Eurocoton and Others v Council [2003] ECR I‑10091, paragraph 47).
85. It must be recalled that, in the sphere of the common commercial policy and, most particularly, in the realm of measures to protect trade, the Community institutions enjoy a broad discretion by reason of the complexity of the economic, political and legal situations which they have to examine (see Case C‑351/04 Ikea Wholesale [2007] ECR I‑7723, paragraph 40 and the case‑law cited, and Case C‑398/05 AGST Draht- und Biegetechnik [2008] ECR I‑1057, paragraph 33).
86. It is settled case-law that the determination of the existence of harm to the Community industry requires an appraisal of complex economic situations and the judicial review of such an appraisal must therefore be limited to verifying whether relevant procedural rules have been complied with, whether the facts have been accurately stated, and whether there has been a manifest error in the appraisal of those facts or a misuse of powers. That is, particularly, the case as regards the determination of the factors injuring the Community industry in an anti‑subsidy proceeding (see AGST Draht- und Biegetechnik , paragraph 34).
87. In determining injury, the Council and the Commission are under an obligation to consider whether the injury on which they intend to base their conclusions actually derives from the subsidised imports and must disregard any injury deriving from other factors, particularly from the conduct of Community producers themselves (see Extramet Industrie  v Council , paragraph 16, and AGST Draht- und Biegetechnik , paragraph 35).
89. It is clear that conduct which directly affects the prices of products manufactured in the Community – in the present case, the payment of royalties – may be capable of casting doubt, first, on the causal link between the subsidised imports and the injury (see, to that effect, AGST Draht- und Biegetechnik , paragraphs 45 to 54) and, second, on the assessment of the injury suffered by the Community industry by reason of the undercutting prices of those imports.