Associação dos Refinadores de Açúcar Portugueses (ARAP), Alcântara Refinarias - Açúcares SA and Refinarias de Açúcar Reunidas SA (RAR) v Commission of the European Communities.
Date: 2002-05-16
48 According to settled case-law, where an appeal 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, it fails to satisfy the requirements under Article 51 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 112(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure. In reality, such an appeal amounts to no more than a request for re-examination of the application submitted to the Court of First Instance, which, under Article 49 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice, falls outside the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice (see, in particular, the order of 25 March 1998 in Case C-174/97 P FFSA and Others v Commission [1998] ECR I-1303, paragraph 24).
49 However, provided that the appellant challenges the interpretation or application of Community law by the Court of First Instance, the points of law examined at first instance may be discussed again in the course of an appeal (Case C-210/98 P Salzgitter v Commission [2000] ECR I-5843, paragraph 43). Indeed, if an appellant could not thus base his appeal on pleas in law and arguments already relied on before the Court of First Instance, an appeal would be deprived of part of its purpose.
61 However, the background to the present dispute is not the same. It is clear from the documents on the Court file that the individual tax reliefs at issue were examined by the Commission, which had received complaints about them from the appellants. The Commission took the view that those measures did comply with the two conditions laid down by the decision of 3 July 1991 for them to be classified as existing aid, exempt as such from formal notification and from examination of their compatibility with Articles 92 and 93 of the Treaty. In taking that position, the Commission did not confine itself to recording that the individual measures at issue were in the nature of existing aid. Taking the view that those measures were covered by the decision of 3 July 1991, it also decided not to open the procedure provided for by Article 93(2) of the Treaty. The appellants, who could have intervened as complainants in such a procedure if the Commission had opened it, would be deprived of that guarantee if they did not have the option of challenging before the Court of First Instance the assessment made by the Commission (see, to that effect, Case C-198/91 Cook v Commission [1993] ECR I-2487, paragraphs 20 to 24).
62 Accordingly, in holding, at paragraph 36 of the judgment under appeal, that the fact that the aid at issue was existing aid did not deprive the applicants of an interest in bringing proceedings in that case, on the ground that such aid might not be covered by the decision of 3 July 1991, and, at paragraphs 39 and 40 of that judgment, that the applicants could secure compliance with the procedural guarantees under Article 93(2) of the Treaty only if they were able to challenge the contested decision before the Community Court, the Court of First Instance did not err in law.
112 Under Article 118 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Article 42(2) of those rules, which prohibits generally the introduction of new pleas in law in the course of the procedure, applies to the procedure before the Court of Justice on appeal from a decision of the Court of First Instance. In an appeal the Court's jurisdiction is thus confined to review of the findings on the pleas argued before the Court of First Instance (see Case C-136/92 P Commission v Brazzelli Lualdi and Others [1994] ECR I-1981, paragraph 59, and the order of 28 June 2001 in Case C-352/99 P Eridania and Others v Council [2001] ECR I-5037, paragraphs 52 and 53).