larimo/cjeu-paragraph-retrieval huggingface dataset:
European Commission v Italian Republic.
Date: 2020-01-28
39


As regards, in the first place, the interpretation of those provisions, it should be recalled that, in accordance with settled case-law, in interpreting a provision of EU law, it is necessary to consider not only its wording but also its context and the objectives pursued by the rules of which it forms part (judgment of 7 November 2019, UNESA and Others, C‑105/18 to C‑113/18, EU:C:2019:935, paragraph 31 and the case-law cited).
55


In that regard, it is important to recall that a Member State’s failure to fulfil obligations may, in principle, be established under Article 258 TFEU whatever the agency of that State whose action or inaction is the cause of the failure to fulfil its obligations, even in the case of a constitutionally independent institution (judgments of 5 May 1970, Commission v Belgium, 77/69, EU:C:1970:34, paragraph 15; of 12 March 2009, Commission v Portugal, C‑458/07, not published, EU:C:2009:147, paragraph 20; and of 4 October 2018, Commission v France (Advance payment), C‑416/17, EU:C:2018:811, paragraph 107).
58


As regards, in the third place, the substantive nature of the failure to fulfil obligations alleged by the Commission under Article 4(3) and (4) of Directive 2011/7, it should be recalled that, in accordance with settled case-law, the question whether a Member State has failed to fulfil its obligations must be determined by reference to the situation prevailing in the Member State at the end of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion (judgment of 18 October 2018, Commission v United Kingdom, C‑669/16, EU:C:2018:844, paragraph 40 and the case-law cited), namely, in the case at hand, on 16 April 2017.
64


However, such considerations are not such as to rule out the existence, at the end of the period laid down in the reasoned opinion, of a failure of that Member State to fulfil its obligations under Article 4(3) and (4) of Directive 2011/7 (see, by analogy, judgment of 4 March 2010, Commission v Italy, C‑297/08, EU:C:2010:115, paragraphs 77 and 78). Moreover, it follows from the case-law of the Court that an action against a Member State for failure to fulfil its obligations is objective in nature and, consequently, where a Member State fails to fulfil its obligations under EU law, the infringement exists regardless of the frequency or the scale of the circumstances complained of (see, to that effect, judgment of 30 January 2003, Commission v Denmark, C‑226/01, EU:C:2003:60, paragraph 32 and case-law cited).
65


Consequently, the fact — assuming it were established — that the situation involving the public authorities’ late payments in commercial transactions covered by Directive 2011/7 was improving could not prevent the Court from holding that the Italian Republic had failed to fulfil its obligations under EU law (see, by analogy, judgment of 24 October 2019, Commission v France (Exceedance of limit values for nitrogen dioxide), C‑636/18, EU:C:2019:900, paragraph 49).
Corporis Sp. z o.o. v Gefion Insurance A/S.
Date: 2020-02-27
29


In accordance with the Court’s case-law in this field, it follows from a systematic interpretation of Regulation No 1393/2007 that that regulation provides for only two circumstances in which the service of a judicial document between Member States falls outside its scope, namely, first, where the permanent or habitual residence of the addressee is unknown and, second, where that person has appointed an authorised representative in the Member State where the judicial proceedings are taking place. By contrast, in other situations, where the person to be served with the judicial document resides in another Member State, the service of that document falls within the scope of Regulation No 1393/2007 and must, therefore, be carried out by the means put in place by the regulation for that purpose, as provided for in Article 1(1) thereof (judgments of 19 December 2012, Alder, C‑325/11, EU:C:2012:824, paragraphs 24 and 25, and of 16 September 2015, Alpha Bank Cyprus, C‑519/13, EU:C:2015:603, paragraphs 68 and 69).
37


As that provision does not specify the exact scope of the powers conferred for that purpose on the insurance undertaking’s representative, in particular whether the power of representation includes the possibility for that representative to accept service of judicial documents, it is necessary, in accordance with settled case-law, to consider the context of that provision and the objectives pursued by the rules of which it is part (see, to that effect, judgment of 25 January 2017, Vilkas, C‑640/15, EU:C:2017:39, paragraph 30 and the case-law cited).
41


Thus, the purpose of such a representative is to make the steps to be taken by accident victims easier, in particular to allow them to make a claim in their own language, namely that of the host Member State. It would therefore be contrary to the objective pursued by Article 152(1) of Directive 2009/138 to deprive those victims, once they have carried out the preliminary formalities directly with that representative, and given that they have a direct right of action against the insurer in question, of the possibility of serving judicial documents on that representative in order to bring an action for compensation before the national courts (see, by analogy, judgment of 10 October 2013, Spedition Welter, C‑306/12, EU:C:2013:650, paragraph 24).
Republic of Lithuania v European Commission.
Date: 2020-02-27
71


There is such distortion where, without recourse to new evidence, the assessment of the existing evidence is clearly incorrect. However, such 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. Moreover, where an appellant alleges distortion of the evidence by the General Court, he or she must indicate precisely the evidence alleged to have been distorted by that Court and show the errors of appraisal which, in his or her view, led to that distortion (judgment of 19 September 2019, Poland v Commission, C‑358/18 P, not published, EU:C:2019:763, paragraph 45 and the case-law cited).
Vodafone Magyarország Mobil Távközlési Zrt. v Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal Fellebbviteli Igazgatósága.
Date: 2020-03-03
19


In that regard, it must at the outset be recalled that Article 108(3) TFEU establishes a prior control of plans to grant new aid. The aim of that system of prior control is therefore that only compatible aid may be implemented. In order to achieve that aim, the implementation of planned aid is to be deferred until doubt as to its compatibility is resolved by the Commission’s final decision (judgments of 21 November 2013, Deutsche Lufthansa, C‑284/12, EU:C:2013:755, paragraphs 25 and 26, and of 5 March 2019, Eesti Pagar, C‑349/17, EU:C:2019:172, paragraph 84).
59


In order to decide whether a tax, duty or charge can be characterised as a turnover tax, within the meaning of Article 401 of the VAT Directive, it is necessary, in particular, to determine whether it has the effect of jeopardising the functioning of the common system of value added tax (VAT) by being levied on the movement of goods and services and on commercial transactions in a way comparable to VAT (see, by analogy, judgment of 11 October 2007, KÖGÁZ and Others, C‑283/06 and C‑312/06, EU:C:2007:598, paragraph 34 and the case-law cited).
60


The Court has stated in this regard that taxes, duties and charges must in any event be regarded as being imposed on the movement of goods and services in a way comparable to VAT if they exhibit the essential characteristics of VAT, even if they are not identical to it in every way (judgment of 3 October 2006, Banca popolare di Cremona, C‑475/03, EU:C:2006:629, paragraph 26 and the case-law cited).
61


However, Article 401 of the VAT Directive does not preclude, no more than did Article 33 of Sixth Council Directive 77/388/EEC of 17 May 1977 on the harmonization of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes — Common system of value added tax: uniform basis of assessment (OJ 1977 L 145, p. 1), the maintenance or introduction of a tax which does not display one of the essential characteristics of VAT (see, by analogy, judgment of 7 August 2018, Viking Motors and Others, C‑475/17, EU:C:2018:636, paragraph 38 and the case-law cited).
62


It is apparent from the case-law that there are four such characteristics: VAT applies generally to transactions relating to goods or services; it is proportional to the price charged by the taxable person in return for the goods and services which he has supplied; it is charged at each stage of the production and distribution process, including that of retail sale, irrespective of the number of transactions which have previously taken place; the amounts paid during the preceding stages of the process are deducted from the VAT payable by a taxable person, with the result that the tax applies, at any given stage, only to the value added at that stage and the final burden of the tax rests ultimately on the consumer (judgment of 3 October 2006, Banca popolare di Cremona, C‑475/03, EU:C:2006:629, paragraph 28).
Tesco-Global Áruházak Zrt. v Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal Fellebbviteli Igazgatósága.
Date: 2020-03-03
31


In that regard, it must, at the outset, be recalled that Article 108(3) TFEU establishes a prior control of plans to grant new aid. The aim of that system of prior control is therefore that only compatible aid may be implemented. In order to achieve that aim, the implementation of planned aid is to be deferred until doubt as to its compatibility is resolved by the Commission’s final decision (judgments of 21 November 2013, Deutsche Lufthansa, C‑284/12, EU:C:2013:755, paragraphs 25 and 26, and of 5 March 2019, Eesti Pagar, C‑349/17, EU:C:2019:172, paragraph 84).
46


In that regard, it must be recalled that, even when there is case-law of the Court resolving the point of law at issue, national courts remain entirely at liberty to bring a matter before the Court if they consider it appropriate to do so, and the fact that the provisions whose interpretation is sought have already been interpreted by the Court does not deprive the Court of jurisdiction to give a further ruling (judgment of 6 November 2018, Bauer and Willmeroth, C‑569/16 and C‑570/16, EU:C:2018:871, paragraph 21 and the case-law cited).
Procureur-generaal v X.
Date: 2020-03-03
21


In those circumstances, according to the Court’s settled case-law, for the purpose of interpreting a provision of EU law it is necessary to consider not only its wording but also the context in which it occurs and the objectives pursued by the rules of which it is part (judgments of 19 December 2013, Koushkaki, C‑84/12, EU:C:2013:862, paragraph 34; of 16 November 2016, Hemming and Others, C‑316/15, EU:C:2016:879, paragraph 27, and of 25 January 2017, Vilkas, C‑640/15, EU:C:2017:39, paragraph 30).
Tulliallan Burlington Ltd v European Union Intellectual Property Office.
Date: 2020-03-04
101


It is settled case-law of the Court of Justice that under the second subparagraph of Article 256(1) TFEU and the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, an appeal lies on points of law only. The General Court thus has exclusive jurisdiction to find and appraise the relevant facts and assess the evidence. The appraisal of those facts and the assessment of that evidence thus do not, save where the facts or evidence are distorted, constitute points of law subject, as such, to review by the Court of Justice on appeal (judgment of 13 November 2019, Outsource Professional Services v EUIPO, C‑528/18 P, not published, EU:C:2019:961, paragraph 47).
Telecom Italia SpA v Ministero dello Sviluppo Economico and Ministero dell'Economia e delle Finanze.
Date: 2020-03-04
58


In the absence of EU legislation in this area, the rules implementing the principle of res judicata are a matter for the national legal order, in accordance with the principle of the procedural autonomy of the Member States. However, such procedural rules must not be less favourable than those governing similar domestic situations (principle of equivalence) and must not be framed in such a way as to make it in practice impossible or excessively difficult to exercise the rights conferred by EU law (principle of effectiveness) (judgment of 3 September 2009, Fallimento Olimpiclub, C‑2/08, EU:C:2009:506, paragraph 24).
61


Consequently, a national court cannot validly claim that it is impossible for it to interpret a provision of national law in a manner that is consistent with EU law merely because that provision has been interpreted in a manner that is incompatible with EU law or is applied in such a manner by the relevant national authorities (judgment of 24 June 2019, Popławski, C‑573/17, EU:C:2019:530, paragraph 79).
64


By contrast, if the referring court considers that, under national law, the force of res judicata attaching to the judgment of the Consiglio di Stato (Council of State) No 7506 of 1 December 2009 covers the case in the main proceedings and thus determines its outcome, attention should be drawn to the importance, both in the legal order of the European Union and in national legal systems, of the principle of res judicata. In order to ensure stability of the law and of legal relations, as well as the sound administration of justice, it is important that judicial decisions which have become definitive after all rights of appeal have been exhausted or after the passing of the time limits provided for in that connection can no longer be called into question (judgments of 3 September 2009, Fallimento Olimpiclub, C‑2/08, EU:C:2009:506, paragraph 22 and the case-law cited, and of 11 September 2019, Călin, C‑676/17, EU:C:2019:700, paragraph 26).
66


Consequently, EU law does not require a national judicial body automatically to go back on a judgment having the force of res judicata in order to take into account the interpretation of a relevant provision of EU law adopted by the Court (judgment of 11 September 2019, Călin, C‑676/17, EU:C:2019:700, paragraph 28).
OPR-Finance s.r.o. v GK.
Date: 2020-03-05
20


It follows from Article 8(1) of Directive 2008/48, read in the light of recital 28 thereof, that, prior to the conclusion of a credit agreement, the creditor must assess the consumer’s creditworthiness and that obligation may, where appropriate, include a consultation of the relevant database. In that regard, it must be recalled that the purpose of that obligation, in accordance with recital 26 of that directive, is to make a creditor accountable and to prevent that creditor from granting credit to consumers who are not creditworthy.
44


It follows that the referring court cannot, in the main proceedings, validly claim that it is impossible for it to interpret the provisions of national law at issue in a manner that is compatible with EU law, for the sole reason that those provisions have been interpreted, by the Czech courts, in a way that is not compatible with EU law. Thus, it is for the referring court to ensure that Directive 2008/48 is given full effect, and if necessary to disapply, on its own authority, the interpretation adopted by the Czech courts, since that interpretation is not compatible with EU law (see, by analogy, judgment of 8 November 2016, Ognyanov, C‑554/14, EU:C:2016:835, paragraphs 69 and 70 and the case-law cited).
Györgyné Lintner v UniCredit Bank Hungary Zrt.
Date: 2020-03-11
31


That assessment is justified, inter alia, by the fact that the principle that the subject matter of an action is delimited by the parties, as well as the principle of ne ultra petita, according to which the court cannot rule beyond the pleadings of the parties — principles to which the Hungarian Government also referred during the hearing — risk being disregarded if national courts were required, under Directive 93/13, to ignore or exceed the limitations of the subject matter of the dispute established by the forms of order sought and the pleas in law of the parties, as the Advocate General also stated, in essence, in points 43 and 51 of his Opinion.
Baltic Cable AB v Energimarknadsinspektionen.
Date: 2020-03-11
48


Next, Article 17 of Regulation No 714/2009, which exempts new interconnectors from the provisions of Article 16(6) of that regulation, provides, in paragraph 1(c) thereof, that, in order to benefit from that exemption, the interconnector in question must be owned by a natural or legal person which is separate from the system operators in whose systems that interconnector will be built. It is apparent from the preparatory works for Regulation (EC) No 1228/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2003 on conditions for access to the network for cross-border exchanges in electricity (OJ 2003 L 176, p. 1), which was repealed and replaced by Regulation No 714/2009, in particular from the explanatory memorandum to the amended Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on conditions for access to the network for cross-border exchanges in electricity (COM(2002) 304 final), that that provision is aimed at interconnectors where the investor cannot rely on charges made for the use of the networks linked by the interconnector.
San Domenico Vetraria SpA v Agenzia delle Entrate.
Date: 2020-03-11
21


It follows therefrom that a supply of services is effected ‘for consideration’ within the meaning of Article 2, point 1, of the Sixth Directive, and hence is taxable, only if there is a legal relationship between the provider of the service and the recipient pursuant to which there is reciprocal performance, the remuneration received by the provider of the service constituting the value actually given in return for the service supplied to the recipient. That is the case if there is a direct link between the service supplied and the consideration received (see, to that effect, judgments of 22 June 2016, Český rozhlas, C‑11/15, EU:C:2016:470, paragraphs 21 and 22 and the case-law cited; of 22 November 2018, MEO — Serviços de Comunicações e Multimédia, C‑295/17, EU:C:2018:942, paragraph 39; and of 3 July 2019, UniCredit Leasing, C‑242/18, EU:C:2019:558, paragraph 69).
Caisse d’assurance retraite et de la santé au travail d’Alsace-Moselle v SJ and Ministre chargé de la Sécurité sociale.
Date: 2020-03-12
39


Nonetheless, in the procedure laid down by Article 267 TFEU providing for cooperation between national courts and the Court of Justice, it is for the latter to provide the national court with an answer which will be of use to it and enable it to determine the case before it. To that end, the Court may have to reformulate the questions referred to it. The Court has a duty to interpret all provisions of EU law which national courts require in order to decide the actions pending before them, even if those provisions are not expressly indicated in the questions referred to the Court of Justice by those courts (judgment of 13 June 2019, Moro, C‑646/17, EU:C:2019:489, paragraph 39 and the case-law cited).
40


Consequently, even if, formally, the referring court has limited its questions to the interpretation of certain provisions of EU law, that does not prevent this Court from providing the referring court with all the elements of interpretation of EU law that may be of assistance in adjudicating in the case before it, whether or not the referring court has referred to them in the wording of its questions. It is, in that regard, for the Court to extract from all the information provided by the national court, in particular from the grounds of the decision referring the questions, the points of EU law which require interpretation in view of the subject matter of the dispute in the main proceedings (judgment of 13 June 2019, Moro, C‑646/17, EU:C:2019:489, paragraph 40 and the case-law cited).
A and Others v Finnair Oyj.
Date: 2020-03-12
38


According to settled case-law, events may be classified as ‘extraordinary circumstances’, within the meaning of Article 5(3) of Regulation No 261/2004, if, by their nature or origin, they are not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the air carrier concerned and are outside that carrier’s actual control, both conditions being cumulative (judgments of 4 April 2019, Germanwings, C‑501/17, EU:C:2019:288, paragraph 20 and of 26 June 2019, Moens, C‑159/18, EU:C:2019:535, paragraph 16).
Komisia za protivodeystvie na koruptsiyata i za otnemane na nezakonno pridobitoto imushtestvo v BP and Others.
Date: 2020-03-19
It is also clear from Article 14(1) of Directive 2014/42 that that directive replaces only the first four indents of Article 1 and Article 3 of Framework Decision 2005/212 for the Member States bound by the directive, the consequence of which, as the Advocate General stated in essence in points 48 and 49 of her Opinion, that Articles 2, 4 and 5 of that framework decision remain in force after the adoption of Directive 2014/42.
ClientEarth v European Commission.
Date: 2020-03-19
It must be borne in mind that, in an appeal, the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice is confined to review of the findings of law on the pleas argued before the General Court. A party cannot, therefore, put forward for the first time before the Court of Justice a plea in law which it could have raised before the General Court but did not raise, since that would allow that party to bring before the Court of Justice, whose jurisdiction in appeals is limited, a case of wider ambit than that which came before the General Court (see, to that effect, judgments of 1 June 1994, Commission v Brazzelli Lualdi and Others, C‑136/92 P, EU:C:1994:211, paragraph 59, and of 18 February 2016, Council v Bank Mellat, C‑176/13 P, EU:C:2016:96, paragraph 116 and the case-law cited).
However, the Court has repeatedly held that an appellant is entitled to lodge an appeal relying, before it, on grounds which arise from the judgment under appeal itself and seek to criticise, in law, its correctness (judgment of 6 September 2018, Czech Republic v Commission, C‑4/17 P, EU:C:2018:678, paragraph 24 and the case-law cited).
The Commission contends that the second part of the first ground of appeal is unfounded. In its view, ClientEarth confuses the general test that has been adopted by the EU judicature to assess the application of the exception laid down in the third indent of Article 4(1)(a) of Regulation No 1049/2001, which is to be found in paragraph 64 of the judgment of 3 July 2014, Council v In  ’t Veld (C‑350/12 P, EU:C:2014:2039), with the concrete analysis carried out by the General Court in the case which gave rise to the judgment of 4 May 2012, In  ’t Veld v Council (T‑529/09, EU:T:2012:215), when that concrete analysis is just an illustration of how the test may be applied in one case and does not constitute a test of general application, transposable to other cases which may be quite different.
The Court of Justice held, in paragraphs 52 and 64 of the judgment of 3 July 2014, Council v In  ’t Veld (C‑350/12 P, EU:C:2014:2039), that, if the institution concerned decides to refuse access to a document which it has been asked to disclose, it must, in principle, explain how disclosure of that document could specifically and actually undermine the public interest protected by the exception — among those provided for in Article 4 of Regulation No 1049/2001 — upon which it is relying. In addition, the risk of the interest being undermined must be reasonably foreseeable and must not be purely hypothetical.
However, it must be borne in mind that, if the grounds of a judgment of the General Court disclose an infringement of EU law but the operative part is shown to be well founded on other legal grounds, such an infringement is not capable of bringing about the setting aside of that judgment (judgment of 14 October 2014, Buono and Others v Commission, C‑12/13 P and C‑13/13 P, EU:C:2014:2284, paragraph 62 and the case-law cited).