Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Action for annulment ° Judgment annulling a measure ° Scope ° Annulment of Article 5 of Decision No 194/88/ECSC

(ECSC Treaty, Art. 33; General Decision No 194/88, Art. 5)

2. ECSC ° Production ° System of steel production and delivery quotas ° Quotas exceeded ° Action in which the Court enjoys full jurisdiction directed against the decision to impose a fine ° Possibility for the Court to require the Commission, when calculating the excess, to take account of the harm suffered by the undertaking as a result of the annulled measure ° Excluded ° Making good the damage in accordance with the procedure provided for in Article 34 of the ECSC Treaty

(ECSC Treaty, Arts 34 and 36)

3. ECSC ° Production ° System of steel production and delivery quotas ° Quotas exceeded ° Request for an advance on part of the quotas for the following quarter ° End of the system ° Request devoid of purpose

(General Decision No 194/88, Art. 11(3)(e))

4. Appeals ° Pleas in law ° Grounds of a judgment disclosing a breach of Community law ° Operative part well founded for other reasons of law ° Dismissal

5. Appeals ° Jurisdiction of the Court of Justice ° Assessment of the Court of First Instance as regards the amount of the fine imposed on an undertaking challenged on grounds of fairness ° Excluded

Summary

1. As the Court did not annul Article 5 of Decision No 194/88 extending the system of monitoring and production quotas for certain products of undertakings in the steel industry in so far as it empowered the Commission to fix quotas, but only in so far as it did not enable it to establish delivery quotas on a basis which the Commission considered fair for undertakings having ratios between their delivery quotas and production quotas which were significantly lower than the Community average, it follows that the Commission had a legal basis for fixing the quotas for 1988 provided it observed the requirement of fairness and that those quotas could be used in order to determine whether an undertaking had exceeded the quantity which had been allocated to it.

2. In the context of an action in which it has unlimited jurisdiction under Article 36 of the ECSC Treaty directed against a fine imposed for exceeding steel production and delivery quotas, the Community judicature cannot compel the Commission, to take into account, for the purpose of calculating the degree to which an undertaking is alleged to have exceeded a quota, the effects of the annulment of an act which is said to have caused damage to that undertaking.

The consequences of the annulment of such a measure fall under Article 34 of the ECSC Treaty, which provides that the Commission must take the appropriate measures to make good the direct and special harm caused by an act of a nature such as to render the Community liable, since an undertaking may only institute proceedings for damages if the Commission has not carried out its obligation under that provision.

3. Although, according to Article 11(3)(e) of Decision No 194/88 extending the system of monitoring and production quotas for certain products of undertakings in the steel industry, an advance could, in principle, be granted on the quotas for the following quarter by the Commission, no advance could, however, be granted during the second quarter of 1988 since the quota system ended on 30 June 1988. Article 11(3)(e) thus became devoid of purpose from the end of the first quarter and the Commission was no longer competent to adopt at the end of that period a decision granting or refusing an advance.

4. Where the grounds of a judgment of the Court of First Instance disclose a breach of Community law but the operative part appears well founded for other reasons of law, the appeal must be dismissed.

5. It is not for the Court of Justice, where it is deciding questions of law in the context of an appeal, to substitute, on grounds of fairness, its own appraisal for that of the Court of First Instance adjudicating, in the exercise of its unlimited jurisdiction, on the amount of a fine imposed on an undertaking by reason of its infringement of Community law.