On 6 October 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“the Court” or “ECJ”) gave out its judgment in Case C-23/14 Post Danmark II on rebates. The judgment constitutes a recapitulation and systematisation of the Court’s previous case-law on this subject and it provides guidance to public enforcers as well as to dominant undertakings when designing their rebate schemes.
The judgment in Case C-67/14 Alimanovic came out on 15 September 2015. This case raises similar questions with Case C-333/13 Dano (blogged here). The Court of Justice (“CoJ”) made here another clarification regarding entitlement to “social assistance” under (the Citizenship) Directive 2004/38.
The Court of Justice (“the Court”) delivered its judgment on appeal in Case C-583/13 P Deutsche Bahn AG a.o. v European Commission, which deals with three important issues concerning the Commission’s powers of inspection in competition cases. These three issues, as defined by DB’s three pleas on appeal, refer to, first, the interpretation and application of the fundamental right to the inviolability of the home provided for in Articles 7 of the Chapter and Article 8 of the ECHR; second, the interpretation and application of the right to effective judicial protection provided for in Article 47 of the Chapter and Article 6(1) of the ECHR; and third, the rights of defence due to alleged irregularities vitiating the conduct of the first inspection.
In this post, we will look closer into the third issue, i.e. the required scope of the Commission’s inspection decisions. Continue reading
Our friends on the editorial board of the Cahiers de droit européen, the leading French language journal on EU law, have kindly asked us to publicise their call for papers for the special issue of the journal.
Here it is…. so warm up your word processors, typewriters, pens or whatever you use and start writing:
Call to contribute papers for the 50-year anniversary of
Cahiers de droit européen
On the occasion of its 50-year anniversary, Cahiers de droit européen is organising a conference on the General principles of European Union law, to be held in Brussels on 10 September 2015. The Board of Editors is inviting submissions. All selected papers will be published in a special issue of the review.
The first part of the conference will touch upon horizontal issues raised by general principles of EU Law. General principles played a crucial role in the construction of the legal order of the Community, and later of the Union. They enabled e.g. the development of the law of non-contractual liability of the Union and were for a long time the only legal tool ensuring the protection of fundamental rights.
Many general principles were explicitly anchored in primary law, through successive reforms of the treaties. The ‘codification’ in the treaties of a certain number of principles of an institutional nature, as well as the entry into force of a binding version of the Charter of fundamental rights of the Union, are good illustrations of this phenomenon. However, this does not mean that general principles have disappeared as a source of law, nor that they are no longer useful. Recent case-law of the Court bears testimony to this, notably as regards the combined effect of certain general principles and directives or as regards horizontal direct effect of the Charter. We would therefore welcome original contributions relating to the status, the scope and the usefulness of general principles in the Union’s legal order.
The second part of the conference will examine specific principles that can be grouped into the three following categories:
Proposals for papers, of a length of maximum 2000 words, should contain a summary presentation in French or English as well as the main references to case-law. The proposal should specify to which of the above issues it relates.
Submissions should be sent to Mrs. Anne Vallery, Secretary to the Board of Editors (anne.vallery@vvgb-law.com), before 1 March 2015. Summary presentations will be reviewed and selected by a scientific committee. Authors will receive an answer no later than 20 April 2015. The selected summaries will be published in a brochure that will be communicated to all conference participants.
Final contributions should be sent to the Cahiers no later than 15 November. They will be published in the first issue of the 2016 volume.
Reasonable costs of intra-European travel and accommodation will be reimbursed for invited speakers.
The Board of Editors
The EFTA Court delivered its judgment in Case E-21/13 FIFA v EFTA Surveillance Authority on 3 October 2014. As I was the agent for the defendant in that case, I wanted to publish a post to it, even though it is… no big news as the EFTA Court reiterates the case-law of the Court of Justice (“CoJ”).
Background to the case/Contested decision:
In that case, FIFA challenged a decision by the EFTA Surveillance Authority (“the Authority”), in which the latter approved the inclusion in the Norwegian list of events of all the matches played at the final stage of the FIFA World Cup.
Dear Readers,
Apologies for the hiatus.
Maria and I have day jobs that have kept us busy. Meanwhile, the Courts have handed down some interesting judgments which we shall post about soon for your reading pleasure.
Fear not, blogging will resume.
Case C-184/13 concerns the compatibility with EU law, and in particular with Article 101 TFEU, of national legislation pursuant to which the price of road haulage services for hire and reward cannot be lower than the minimum operating costs. These costs are fixed primarily in the framework of voluntary sectoral agreements concluded by professional associations of carriers and customers, or in the absence of such agreements by the Osservatorio (a national body in Italy carrying out, inter alia, monitoring tasks concerning compliance with the provisions on road safety and social security and updating the practices and customs applicable to haulage contracts concluded orally), and if not by the latter, directly by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport.
A lot has already been written concerning this judgment. I was trying to post a meaningful summary of the interesting points of the judgment but I gave up since it seems to be very important in its entirety. I apologise in advance for the lengthy text that follows.
The issue is the application of Directive 95/46 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data (“Directive 95/46” or “the Directive”) vis-a-vis search engine operators, in particular Google in the case referred for a preliminary ruling.
For an introduction and the facts of these case, pls have a look at Part 1.
The second time round, the General Court again annulled the contested Commission decision as infringing the principles of sound administration, legal certainty and the presumption of legality attaching to European Union measures. It also found that, in view of the Council authorisations, the exemptions could not be attributed to the Member States themselves and, thus, the Commission erred in classifying them as State aid within the meaning of Article 87(1) EC (see General Court’s judgment here).
EU litigation 