Case T-155/02

WG International Handelsgesellschaft mbH and Others

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Regulation (EC) No 3285/94 — Regulation (EC) No 560/2002 — Provisional safeguard measures — Action for annulment — Inadmissibility’

Order of the Court of First Instance (First Chamber), 30 April 2003   II-1953

Summary of the Order

1. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual concern to them — Regulation introducing provisional safeguard measures in relation to the importation of certain steel products — Act of general scope

   (Arts 230, fourth para., EC and 249 EC; Commission Regulation No 560/2002, Art. 1(3))

2. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual concern to them — Regulation introducing provisional safeguard measures in relation to the importation of certain steel products — Economic operators having as their essential business the importation of the products covered by the regulation — No circumstance differentiating those operators from others

   (Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 560/2002)

3. Actions for annulment — Natural or legal persons — Measures of direct and individual concern to them — Applicant able to rely on the obligation upon the author of the measure to have regard to his situation — Establishment of a tariff quota as a provisional safeguard measure — Obligation to take account of the situation of certain importers subject to a notification by the Member State concerned of the contracts concluded by them previously

   (Art. 230, fourth para., EC; Commission Regulation No 560/2002)

1.  The measures laid down by Regulation No 560/2002 imposing provisional safeguard measures against imports of certain steel products, which opens a tariff quota in relation to imports into the Community of each of the groups of products in question for a period of six months from the date on which the Regulation enters into force, and which subjects imports of those products which are in excess of the relevant tariff quota or without a request for the benefit of the quota, to an additional duty, are measures of general application within the meaning of Article 249 EC. They apply to objectively determined situations and produce legal effects vis-à-vis classes of persons envisaged in a general and abstract manner, namely the importers of the groups of products in question, which are specified in Annex 3 to the regulation.

   The general scope and hence the legislative nature of that regulation are not called into question by the fact that it is possible to determine the number or even the identity of the persons to whom it applies at a given moment with a greater or lesser degree of precision as long as it is established that it is applied by virtue of an objective legal or factual situation defined by the measure in relation to the objective of the latter.

   Irrespective of the more or less limited number of importers of the groups of steel products specified in Annex 3 to the contested regulation at the date of its adoption, it provides for additional duty on the basis of an objective situation, namely if the importers of one or more of the groups of products in question exceed the corresponding tariff quota specified in Annex 2 to the regulation or if no request is made for the benefit of the quota, as laid down in Article 1(3) of the regulation. In addition, the number of undertakings affected by the contested regulation may always vary.

   (see paras 35-39)

2.  In certain circumstances, even a legislative measure applying to the traders concerned in general may concern some of them individually. In such circumstances, a Community measure could be of a legislative nature and, at the same time, in the nature of a decision vis-à-vis some of the traders concerned.

   However, natural and legal persons can claim to be individually concerned by a measure only where it affects them by reason of certain attributes peculiar to them, or by reason of a factual situation which differentiates them from all other persons.

   The mere fact that the entry into force of Regulation No 560/2002 imposing provisional safeguard measures against imports of certain steel products had an impact on the economic situation of certain undertakings in so far as the greater part of their business consists in the importation of the steel products referred to by the regulation is not sufficient to differentiate them from all other persons. That regulation is of concern to them by reason only of their objective status as importers of the steel products referred to by the regulation, in the same way as any other trader in the same position in the European Community.

   (see paras 40-44)

3.  The fact that the Commission is under a duty, by virtue of specific provisions, to take account of the consequences of the measure it intends to adopt on the situation of certain individuals may be capable of differentiating those individuals for the purposes of Article 230 EC.

   In the case of the adoption of a regulation such as Regulation No 560/2002 imposing provisional safeguard measures against imports of certain steel products, the Commission was under such a duty, thus giving certain importing undertakings a cause of action, only in so far as the Member State under whose jurisdiction those undertakings fell had notified it of the existence of contracts concluded by those undertakings in accordance with normal procedures before the regulation entered into force.

   (see paras 46-49)