Centrosteel Srl v Adipol GmbH.
Date: 2000-07-13
8 In that judgment, the Court held that, as regards the form of an agency contract, Article 13(2) of the Directive mentioned only writing as a requirement for the validity of a contract. Since the Community legislature had dealt exhaustively with the matter, the Member States could not therefore impose any condition other than requiring that a written document be drawn up (Bellone, paragraph 14).
13 First, it must be noted that the Directive is intended to harmonise the laws of the Member States governing the legal relationship between the parties to a commercial agency contract, irrespective of any cross-border elements. Its scope is therefore broader than the fundamental freedoms laid down by the EC Treaty.
15 It is true that, according to settled case-law of the Court, in the absence of proper transposition into national law, a directive cannot of itself impose obligations on individuals (Case 152/84 Marshall v Southampton and South-West Hampshire Health Authority [1986] ECR 723, paragraph 48, and Case C-91/92 Faccini Dori v Recreb [1994] ECR I-3325, paragraph 20).
16 However, it is also apparent from the case-law of the Court (Case C-106/89 Marleasing v La Comercial Internacional de Alimentación [1990] ECR I-4135, paragraph 8; Case C-334/92 Wagner Miret v Fondo de Garantía Salarial [1993] ECR I-6911, paragraph 20; Faccini Dori, paragraph 26; and Joined Cases C-240/98 to C-244/98 Océano Grupo Editorial v Salvat Editores [2000] ECR I-4941, paragraph 30) that, when applying national law, whether adopted before or after the directive, the national court that has to interpret that law must do so, as far as possible, in the light of the wording and the purpose of the directive so as to achieve the result it has in view and thereby comply with the third paragraph of Article 189 of the EC Treaty (now the third paragraph of Article 249 EC).
17 Where it is seised of a dispute falling within the scope of the Directive and arising from facts postdating the expiry of the period for transposing the Directive, the national court, in applying provisions of domestic law or settled domestic case-law, as seems to be the case in the main proceedings, must therefore interpret that law in such a way that it is applied in conformity with the aims of the Directive. As the Advocate General points out in paragraph 36 of his Opinion, it seems in that regard that the Corte Suprema di Cassazione (Supreme Court of Cassation), following the judgment in Bellone, has changed its case-law so that a failure to comply with the obligation prescribed by Law No 204 to be entered in the register of commercial agents and representatives no longer entails the nullity of an agency contract in Italian law.
18 In view of the considerations set out above, it is likewise unnecessary, as the Italian Government and the Commission have rightly submitted, to answer the national court's questions concerning the Treaty provisions on freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services, since the case pending before that court may be resolved on the basis of the Directive and the case-law of the Court of Justice on the effects of directives.