Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Actions for annulment - Pleas in law - Ineffective plea - Concept

2. Appeals - Pleas in law - Misappraisal of the facts - Inadmissible - Whether the Court of Justice may review the appraisal of the evidence - Possible only where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted

(EC Treaty, Art. 168a (now Art. 225 EC); Statute of the EC Court of Justice, Art. 51, first para.)

3. Common commercial policy - Protection against dumping - Discretion of the institutions - Judicial review - Limits - Manifest error of assessment of the facts known to the institutions when an anti-dumping regulation was adopted

(EC Treaty, Art. 173 (now, after amendment, Art. 230 EC); Council Regulation No 2423/88, Art. 12(1))

Summary

1. In an action for annulment, the ineffective nature of a plea which has been raised refers to its capacity, in the event that it is well founded, to lead to the annulment sought by an applicant, and not to the interest which that applicant may have in bringing such an action or even in raising a specific plea, since those are issues relating to the admissibility of the action and the admissibility of the plea respectively.

( see para. 38 )

2. Under Article 168a of the EC Treaty (now Article 225 EC) and Article 51, first paragraph, of the Statute of the Court of Justice, an appeal may be based only on grounds relating to the infringement of rules of law, to the exclusion of any appraisal of the facts. The Court of First Instance has exclusive jurisdiction, first, to establish the facts except where the substantive inaccuracy of its findings is apparent from the documents submitted to it and, second, to assess those facts. Further, the appraisal by the Court of First Instance of the evidence put before it does not constitute (save where the clear sense of that evidence has been distorted) a point of law which is subject, as such, to review by the Court of Justice.

( see paras 42 and 43 )

3. In an action for annulment under Article 173 of the Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 230 EC), it is not for the Court of First Instance to carry out a re-examination of the substance of the contested regulation but to determine whether there was any manifest error of assessment on the part of its author. The Council's assessment at the close of the administrative anti-dumping procedure relates, according to Article 12(1) of Regulation No 2423/88, which is the basic anti-dumping regulation, to the facts as finally established. It follows that the Court of First Instance could, within the framework of its judicial review, confine itself to determining whether the Council had committed a manifest error in its assessment of the facts of which it was aware when the contested regulation was adopted, and therefore take the view that it was unnecessary to take account of a report subsequently produced.

( see paras 60 and 61 )