Trubowest Handel GmbH and Viktor Makarov v Council of the European Union and European Commission.
Date: 2010-03-18
23. In that regard, it must be observed, first of all, that the national courts alone have jurisdiction to entertain actions for recovery of amounts wrongly levied by a national body on the basis of Community legislation declared subsequently to be invalid (see, to that effect, Case 20/88 Roquette frères v Commission  [1989] ECR 1553, paragraph 14; Case C‑282/90 Vreugdenhil  v Commission  [1992] ECR I‑1937, paragraph 12; and Case C‑351/04 Ikea Wholesale  [2007] ECR I‑7723, paragraph 68).
24. In that context, in a case where an individual feels that he has been adversely affected by the application of an anti-dumping regulation which he considers to be illegal, he has the possibility to contest, before the competent national court, the validity of the regulation applied by the national customs authorities. That court may, indeed must, then, under the conditions of Article 234 EC, refer a question to the Court of Justice concerning the validity of the regulation in question.
25. It must also be observed that it is for the national authorities to draw the consequences, in their legal system, of a declaration of invalidity, which has the consequence that anti-dumping duties paid under the regulation concerned are not legally owed within the meaning of Article 236(1) of the CCC and should, in principle, be repaid by the customs authorities in accordance with that provision, provided that the conditions to which such repayment is subject, including that set out in Article 236(2), are satisfied (see Ikea Wholesale , paragraph 67).
30. 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 General Court 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 General Court 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 General Court and the legal conclusions it has drawn from them (see, among others, Case C‑551/03 P General Motors  v Commission  [2006] ECR I‑3173, paragraph 51; judgment of 22 May 2008 in Case C‑266/06 P Evonik Degussa  v Commission , paragraph 72; Joined Cases C‑101/07 P and C‑110/07 P Coop de France bétail et viande and Others  v Commission  [2008] ECR I‑10193, paragraph 58; and Case C‑535/06 P Moser Baer India v Council  [2009] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 31).
31. The Court of Justice thus has no jurisdiction to establish the facts or, in principle, to examine the evidence which the General Court 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 General Court 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, among others, General Motors  v Commission , paragraph 52; Evonik Degussa  v Commission , paragraph 73; Coop de France bétail et viande and Others  v Commission , paragraph 59; and Moser Baer India v Council , paragraph 32).
32. In addition, it is important to note that the 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, among others, General Motors  v Commission , paragraph 54; Evonik Degussa  v Commission , paragraph 74; Coop de France de bétail et viande and Others  v Commission , paragraph 60; and Moser Baer India v Council , paragraph 33).
40. The Court has consistently interpreted the second paragraph of Article 288 EC as meaning that the non-contractual liability of the Community and the exercise of the right to compensation for damage suffered depend on the satisfaction of a number of conditions, relating to the unlawfulness of the conduct of which the institutions are accused, the fact of damage and the existence of a causal link between that conduct and the damage complained of (see, among others, Case 26/81 Oleifici Mediterranei  v EEC  [1982] ECR 3057, paragraph 16; Case C‑146/91 KYDEP  v Council and Commission  [1994] ECR I‑4199, paragraph 19; and Joined Cases C‑120/06 P and C‑121/06 P FIAMM and Others  v Council and Commission  [2008] ECR I‑6513, paragraph 106).
41. In so far as the three conditions giving rise to liability laid down in the second paragraph of Article 288 EC must be satisfied cumulatively, the fact that one of them has not been satisfied is a sufficient basis on which to dismiss an action for damages (Case C‑257/98 P Lucaccioni  v Commission  [1999] ECR I‑5251, paragraph 14).
42. Moreover, there is no requirement that those conditions be examined in any particular order (see, to that effect, Lucaccioni  v Commission , paragraph 13).
47. As the Advocate General stated in paragraph 68 of his Opinion, the appellants have not explained what was supposed to have been the influence of the examination by the General Court of the conduct alleged against the institutions on the assessment of the condition concerning the causal link in the judgment under appeal. The General Court could examine the causal link starting from the assumption that, as alleged by the appellants, the act impugned was actually illegal and the damage was real (see, by analogy, Lucaccioni v Commission , paragraphs 12, 15 and 16, and the order of 12 April 2005 in Case C-80/04 P DLD Trading Company Import-Export  v Council , paragraph 50).
53. The principles common to the laws of the Member States to which the second paragraph of Article 288 EC refers cannot be relied upon to found an obligation on the Community to make good every harmful consequence, even a remote one, of conduct of its institutions (see, to that effect, Joined Cases 64/76, 113/76, 167/78, 239/78, 27/79, 28/79 and 45/79 Dumortier and Others  v Council  [1979] ECR 3091, paragraph 21, and Joined Cases C-363/88 and C‑364/88 Finsider and Others  v Commission  [1992] ECR I‑359, paragraph 25). The condition under the second paragraph of Article 288 EC relating to a causal link concerns a sufficiently direct causal nexus between the conduct of the institutions and the damage (see, to that effect, Dumortier and Others  v Council , paragraph 21).
54. Moreover, according to the Court’s settled case-law, by virtue of Article 225 EC and the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, an appeal may be based only on grounds relating to points of law, to the exclusion of any appraisal of the facts (see to that effect, among others, Case C-283/90 P Vidrányi  v Commission  [1991] ECR I‑4339, paragraph 12, and Case C-19/95 P San Marco  v Commission  [1996] ECR I-4435, paragraph 39).