International Law

Intel, the Ombudsman and the Commission's Antitrust Investigation

Posted on November 18, 2009
The European Ombudsman has made public a version of his decision concluding his investigation into misconduct and maladministration by the Commission's DG Competition. Intel had complained to the European Ombudsman alleging two things. First that the Commission had failed to...

Pregnancy, Discrimination and Effective Judicial Protection: Case C-63/08

Posted on November 16, 2009
Pregnant women must be entitled to effective judicial protection. So holds the Court of Justice in its judgment in Case C-63/08 Virginie Pontin v. T-Comalux SA. Thus, if national law lays down a time-limit for a pregnant woman dismissed from...

Infringements, Judicial Decisions and a National Supreme Court: Case C-154/08

Posted on November 14, 2009
The Court of Justice recently handed down a significant judgment in Case C-154/08 Commission v. Spain making clear that an error of law made by a national Supreme Court can constitute an infringement of EU law. Consequently, the Commission can...

EU/US Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Agreements

Posted on November 14, 2009
The Council has adopted and published its decision to conclude the extradition and mutual legal assistance agreements between the USA and the EU.That means that both agreements are nearer to entering into force which should be on the first day...

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Sad News: Death of AG Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer

Posted on November 13, 2009
We're very sad to announce the sudden death of Advocate General Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer on November 12th 2009. The Court's press release is here. He was born in 1949 and was a professional judge in Spain before being appointed to the...

Lisbon Treaty, Czech Constitutional Court (Again) and Ratification

Posted on November 04, 2009
The Czech Constitutional Court has lifted the last major obstacle to the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty. On November 3rd 2009 it handed down a second judgment (a summary and a press release are available in English) finding...

2008 Commission Report on Public Access to Documents

Posted on October 14, 2009
The Commission released its annual report on transparency for the year 2008. You can read the document - COM(2009) 331 final - here. It makes interesting reading. One would get the impression from reading the judgments of the Court of...

Cases of the Court of Justice on Regulation 44/2001: Council Document

Posted on October 12, 2009
The Council has prepared a handy compilation of the case-law of the Court of Justice interpreting Regulation 44/2001 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. You can access it here on the Council's...

Judicial Appointments and Re-Election of President

Posted on October 07, 2009
A new judicial term begins and there have been some new appointments as well as some reappointments to the Courts. First of all, President Skouris has been re-elected President of the Court of Justice until October 6th 2012. He has...

Parallel Trade, Pharmaceuticals, Restriction of Competition by Object: Joined Cases C-501/06 P, C-513/06 P, C-515/06 P and C-519/06 P

Posted on October 06, 2009
Today?s judgment in Joined Cases C-501/06 P, C-513/06 P, C-515/06 P and C-519/06 P GlaxoSmithKline Services Unlimited (?GSK?) v. Commission will keep the antitrust mavens excited for quite a while. There?s a lot in the judgment and quite some procedural...

Concerted Practices, Oligopoly, Restriction by Object: Case C-8/08

Posted on October 03, 2009
Catching up a bit on some judgments handed down before the summer break. The judgment in Case C-8/08 T-Mobile Netherlands BV v. NMa is all about what constitutes a concerted practice according to Article 81 §1 EC. The story goes...

Emissions Trading, National Allocation Plans, Subsidiarity and Exceedance of Powers: Cases T-183/07 and T-263/07

Posted on September 27, 2009
The European states love to pontificate about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet doing something practical to really reduce them is a different matter. The Commission tried to do something to reduce those emissions but in Case T-183/07 Poland v. Commission...

New Blog: "Adjudicating Europe"

Posted on September 22, 2009
Where have we been lately ? A terrific new blog has been brought to our attention. It is called "Adjudicating Europe". You can access it here. It is a very lively, well written, informative blog. We really liked their hit...

On-line Betting, Sport Sponsorship, Freedom to Provide Services and Case C-42/07

Posted on September 08, 2009
The Court of Justice has handed down an important and interesting judgment in Case C-42/07 Liga Portugesa de Futebol Profissional on the restriction of the supply of online gambling and betting services. The Court held that Article 49 EC allows...

Joint Legal Bases, Funds and the Peace Process: Case C-166/07

Posted on September 03, 2009
We're back ! Thanks for being so patient during the long break. The Court of Justice handed down an interesting judgment in Case C-166/07 European Parliament v. Council on the use of two legal bases at the same time for...

European Court of Human Rights and Administrative/Antitrust Proceedings

Posted on July 29, 2009
The European Court of Human Rights has handed down a significant judgment finding that France is in breach of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights because of the manner in...

Caselaw on Free Movement of Goods

Posted on July 20, 2009
The EC Commission has published a magnificent compendium of the case law of the Court of Justice on the free movement of goods. You can download it in pdf here. Of course, it is very descriptive and contains little or...

National Parliaments and European Commission: 2008 Report

Posted on July 11, 2009
The EC Commission has published its annual report on its relations with national parliaments (COM (2009) 343). Back in 2006, the Commission published a rather verbose paper (Com (2006) 211) stating on page 9 that it would provide all national...

Olympic Airways, State Aid, Infringements and Financial Penalites against Greece: Case C-369/07

Posted on July 07, 2009
The Court of Justice has once again ordered Greece to pay a lump sum and a periodic penalty payment under Article 228 EC for failing to comply with a Court judgment. This time Greece failed to comply with the judgment...

Number of Prisoners: Statistics for 2005-2007

Posted on July 04, 2009
The EC Commission recently released a fascinating set of statistics on the number of prisoners in the EU between 2005 and 2007. You can find them here. During that period there were 607 000 adult and juvenile prisoners including pre-trial...

Free movement of Persons, Directive 2004/38 and Guidelines on Transposition

Posted on July 03, 2009
The Commission adopted guidelines to help ensure better transposition and application of Directive 2004/38/EC on the right of EU citizens and their families to move and reside freely. We noted a while back we noted the Commission's report on the...

German Constitutional Court and Lisbon Treaty Ratification

Posted on July 02, 2009
The German Federal Constitutional Court has handed down its judgment on the compatibility of the Lisbon-Reform Treaty with the German Basic Law (as the constitution is called). The Constitutional Court concluded that there was incompatibility between the Lisbon Treaty and...

Antitrust Fines, Tax Deductibility, Coöperation between Commission and National Courts: Case C-429/07

Posted on June 15, 2009
The Court of Justice has handed down its first judgment defining the scope of the right of the Commission to intervene in proceedings pending before national courts where the coherent application of the antitrust rules so require. In its judgment...

Common Frame of Reference and House of Lords Report

Posted on June 14, 2009
Regular readers surely know that we are big fans of the Reports published by the British House of Lords EU Select Committee. That Committee has recently published an interesting and comprehensive report on the "Draft Common Frame of Reference" ("DCFR"),...

Free Movement of Goods, Product Use and Jet-Skis: Case C-142/05

Posted on June 13, 2009
Remember that a while ago the Court of Justice held that in principle that national rules regulating the use of products are within the ambit of Article 28 EC but can be justified under Article 30. The Court made that...

Infringement Cases, Article 228 EC, Financial Penalties, Lump Sum Payments: Case C-109/08 and Case C-568/07

Posted on June 08, 2009
A really bad day for Greece ! Not one but two judgments of the Court of Justice imposing the payment of a lump sum financial penalty for failure to comply with a Court judgment contrary to Article 228 EC. The...

Korea - EU Competition Cooperation Agreement

Posted on June 03, 2009
The EU has finally signed an agreement to coöperate with the Republic of Korea on antitrust matters. It has taken quite a while for the EU to sign it (appeasement of the North, perhaps? Allright, that's just a joke). The...

Directory of EU Legislation in Preparation

Posted on June 01, 2009
The EU's Office of Publications has set up a neat, web-based, directory of EU legislation in preparation. You can consult it at the link here. The only thing is that it does not seem to be kept up to date...

Pharmacies, Ownership, Freedom of Establishment and Public Health: Cases C-531/06, C-171/07 and C-172/07

Posted on May 24, 2009
Can member States provide that only professionally qualified pharmacists may own and operate a pharmacy ? Yes, answers the Court of Justice in its Grand Chamber formation in its judgments in Case C-531/06 Commission v. Italy and Joined Cases C-171/07...

Intel, Abuse of a Dominant Position and Massive Fine

Posted on May 17, 2009
You've probably read the news already: Intel has been fined ?1.06 billion (US $ 1.43 billion) by the Commission for abusing its dominant position in breach of Article 82 EC. That is the largest fine ever imposed by the Commission...

Fixed Book Prices, Free Movement of Goods and Justification: Case C-531/07

Posted on May 12, 2009
Here's a standard, solid judgment on the free movement of goods and fixed book prices. In its judgment in Case C-531/07 Fachverband der Buch- und Medienwirtschaft v. LIBRO Handelsgesellschaft mbH the Court of Justice held that a prohibition on importers...

Commission Report on Monitoring of Compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights

Posted on May 11, 2009
The Commission has recently published an informative report entitled "Report on the practical operation of the methodology for a systematic and rigorous monitoring of compliance with the Charter of fundamental rights" (COM (2009) 0205). The report is really quite a...

Preliminary References, Admissibility and the Transposition Period: Joined Cases C-261/07 and C-299/07

Posted on May 04, 2009
Now here's an interesting judgment on preliminary references that takes a liberal approach to their admissibility. It also makes clear that national courts must refrain from taking any decision likely to compromise the objective of a directive during the transposition...

Standing to sue, Individuals, Habitats and a Commission Decision: Case C-362/06 P

Posted on May 03, 2009
The Court of Justice has once again taken a fairly strict line on the matter of the standing to sue of individuals. In Case C-362/06 P Markku Sahlstedt and Others v. Commission the Court of Justice dismissed an appeal against...

Commission Report on How Regulation 1/2003 Works

Posted on May 02, 2009
Regulation 1/2003 is the main regulation laying down the procedure in antitrust cases. It entered into force on on May 1 2004. It brought about a major reform of the procedure by decentralizing the application of the EU antitrust rules...

Blogging break

Posted on April 10, 2009
Just to let all you patient readers know that we're taking a break for about ten days. It is vacation time ! Enjoy the break, too.

Uncastrated Pigs, State Liability and Limitation Periods: Case C-445/06

Posted on April 09, 2009
The principle of State liability for loss and damage caused to individuals as a result of breaches of EU law for which the State can be held responsible is now very well established (Joined Cases C-6/90 and C-9/90 Francovich and...

Right of Residence, Free Movement of Persons, Non-EU Spouses: Case C-127/08

Posted on March 28, 2009
How could this have happened ? We're kind of embarrassed..... Here's a major case dealing with the free movement of persons in which the Court of Justice overruled itself and handed down a judgment that's very "citizen friendly". And we...

The European Court's Political Power: Article by Karen Alter

Posted on March 22, 2009
Professor Karen Alter of Northwestern University has published an article entitled "The European Court's Political Power Across Time and Space". Here's what the abstract states:"This article extracts from Alter's larger body of work insights on how the political and social...

Annual Report of Commission for 2008

Posted on March 21, 2009
The Commission has published its annual report for 2008. Like last year, there's a special web page devoted to it which you can access here. The annual report is a rich source of information about what is going on in...

Tennis Rackets, Aviation Security, Unpublished Regulations: Case C-345/06

Posted on March 16, 2009
Anyone for tennis ? Just don't carry tennis rackets in Europe. Read on to find out why.... A recent judgment of the Court of Justice ? Case C-345/06 Gottfried Heinrich ? sets out the principle that part of a regulation...

Cross-border Health Care and the House of Lords Report

Posted on March 09, 2009
We are big fans of the reports of the British House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union. The recent report entitled "Healthcare across EU borders: a safe framework", available here or here in pdf format, is well worth...

Judicial Appointment in the Court of First Instance

Posted on March 02, 2009

State Aids and National Courts: Commission Guidelines

Posted on February 28, 2009

Court Statistics for 2008

Posted on February 23, 2009
The Courts have made public some statistics for 2008 and made a press release. As always, there some good news and some bad news. For the Court of Justice, there is a decline in the number of preliminary references made...

Arbitration, Anti-suit Injunctions and the Brussels Regulation: Case C-

Posted on February 21, 2009
Well, it has happened, as feared. The Court of Justice has handed down its judgment in Case C-185/07 West Tankers and the result is as expected. Remember ? It is that case about anti-suit injunctions issued to protect an arbitration...

Free movement of Goods, Motorcycle Trailers, Product Use and Road Safety: Case C-110/05

Posted on February 16, 2009
Here's a judgment that's important not for what it decides but for what it does not decide. It is the judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-110/05 Commission v. Italy and concerns the free movement of goods. The...

Preliminary Reference, National Appeals and National Courts: Case C-210/06

Posted on February 09, 2009
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Election of Presidents in the Courts: Amendments to the Procedure

Posted on February 04, 2009
There's recently been a slight amendment to the procedure for the election of the President of the Court and of the Presidents of Chambers. The change ends the privilege of age. The relevant provision of the Rules of Procedure (Article...

Draft Agreement on European Patent Judiciary: New Developments

Posted on January 24, 2009
A while ago, we pointed out that one of the biggest developments in the EU legal order is the work going on to create a new European-wide jurisdiction for disputes concerning European and Community patents. At present no EU patent...

Abuse of law and Case C-212/97

Posted on January 21, 2009
Dr. Wolf-Georg Ringe of Oxford University, England, has written an interesting article entitled "Sparking regulatory competition in European Company Law: The impact of the Centros line of case-law and its concept of 'abuse of law'". The article traces the impact...

"My Week as a Member of the European Parliament": BBC Feature

Posted on January 13, 2009
The BBC is running an interesting and entertaining feature. A journalist is chronicling his week at the European Parliament, "embedded" with elected Members. The first instalment is available here. Monday, or getting to Strasbourg, is here. And here's Tuesday...

Examining EC Law Pleas on Own Motion and Reformatio in Pejus: Case C-455/06

Posted on January 11, 2009
The principle of "reformatio in pejus" is relatively common in Continental legal systems and means that an individual bringing an action cannot be placed in a less favorable position than if he had not brought the action in the first...

The Number of European Commissioners: Past, Present and Future

Posted on January 10, 2009
How about starting the year with a general post of institutional interest ? Let us look at how the composition of the EU Commission has changed. At present, the EC Commission currently has 27 members, known (un)popularly as ?Commissioners?. That...

Best Wishes for 2009

Posted on January 10, 2009
Best wishes to you all for 2009. Many thanks for reading the blog in the past and for posting comments. We'd like to welcome new readers, especially students starting their second semester EU law course. We hope that reading the...

Population, Voting and Article 205 EC

Posted on December 18, 2008
Well, this our annual treat. Each year we point out that the Council amends its Rules of Procedure to set out the population figures of each member State and the 62% threshold figure laid down in Article 205 §4 EC....

Privacy and Freedom of the Press: Case C-73/07

Posted on December 16, 2008
The Court of Justice has handed down a stack of interesting judgments lately. We can't write them all up today so be patient. Here's one which deals with a conflict between data protection (privacy) and the freedom of the press....

Free movement of Persons and Residence: Directive 2004/38/EC

Posted on December 15, 2008
A while back we mentioned the singular lack of enthusiasm of the member States to bring into effect Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 29th 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union...

Constitutional Patriotism and the Right to Privacy: New Article by Professor Bignami

Posted on December 04, 2008
Professor Francesca Bignami, now of Gearge Washington University Law School, has published another terrific article on privacy in Europe. The title of the article is "The Case for Tolerant Constitutional Patriotism: The Right to Privacy Before the European Courts" and...

Abuse of Dominant Position, Article 82 and New Guidance

Posted on December 03, 2008
At long last, the Commission has made public its "guidance" on its enforcement priorities in Article 82 EC cases. You can find it here. As we pointed out earlier, antitrust boffins have been making quite a fuss at the EU...

Urgent Preliminary Reference Procedure, Arrest Warrant and Specialty Rule: Case C-388/08 PPU

Posted on December 02, 2008
The Court of Justice has handed down its third judgment using the urgent preliminary reference procedure. This time, the judgment - handed down in Case C-388/08 PPU Leymann and Pustovarov concerns the European arrest warrant and the specialty rule. The...

Stem Cells, Patents and Public Policy: Ruling of EBoA on WARF/Thomson application

Posted on November 29, 2008
The European Patent Office's Enlarged Board of Appeal (EPoA) ruled on November 25th 2008 that it is impossible to grant patent protection to a certain stem cell application for reasons of public policy. Back in 1995 the Wisconsin Alumni Research...

Lisbon Treaty and Czech Constitutional Court

Posted on November 27, 2008
The Czech Constitutional Court handed down its judgment of November 26th 2008 on whether ratification of the Lisbon Treaty was compatible with the Czech Constitution. The Constitutional Court held that Articles 2 § 1 (before renumbering, Article 2a § 1),...

Texts and materials on institutional matters: "Dorie"

Posted on November 24, 2008
The EU institutions - and the Commission in particular - have set up what looks like a useful database of texts and materials on institutional affairs. Here a link to it. The database is given the improbable name of "Dorie"....

Languages and EU law: Case T-185/05

Posted on November 23, 2008
There's nothing quite as sensitive as the law of languages in EU law. And the judgment of the Court of First Instance in Case T-185/05 Italy v. Commission shows just how sensitive and litigious the member States are about languages....

Antitrust, Restriction by Object and Agreed Capacity Reductions: Case C-209/07

Posted on November 20, 2008
The Court of Justice has handed down a neat judgment in Case C-209/07 Competition Authority v. Beef Industry Development Society ("BIDS") and Barry Brothers on what constitutes a restriction of competition "by object" within the meaning o Article 81 §1...

Citizenship, Grants, Students and Ex-workers: Case C-158/07

Posted on November 19, 2008
Has the Court of Justice halted the inexorable march of rights under the banner of "citizenship" ? Perhaps not. But the recent judgment in Case C-158/07 Jacqueline Förster v. Hoofddirectie van de Informatie Beheer Groep does give the member States...

Appointments to the Court of Justice in October 2009

Posted on November 16, 2008
We drew your attention in a post a while ago to a letter sent by the President of the Court of Justice to the President of the Council on judicial reappointments in which he asks that decisions on appointments be...

State liability, Pharmaceuticals and Marketing Authorization: Case C-452/06

Posted on November 03, 2008
Here's an interesting judgment handed down the other day about the liability of a member State for failure to recongize the marketing authorization for a drug granted pursuant to Directive 2001/83 on the Community code relating to medicinal products for...

Immunity of Members of the European Parliament: Joined Cases C-200/07 and C-201/07

Posted on November 01, 2008
Here's a rather curious but interesting case dealing with the immunity from suit of Members of the European Parliament. The Court of Justice held in Joined Cases C-200/07 and C-201/07 Marra v. De Gregorio and Clemente that in principle Members...

2007 Commission Annual Report on Public Access to Documents

Posted on October 21, 2008
The Commission as recently made public its report on transparency in 2007. You can download the document - COM (2008) 630 final - here. The report is a valuable overview of all the activities of the Commission in the field...

Non-horizontal Merger Guidelines Published

Posted on October 20, 2008
The Commission has published its new Guidelines on how it will examine mergers which are not "horizontal" ones - that is to say mergers of undertakings engaged on different relevant markets under its powers conferred by Regulation 139/2004. These new...

Banking Crisis - Overview of National Bailout Measures

Posted on October 14, 2008
The Commission has published a handy table listing the measures taken by the member States to date to bail out the financial sector. You can find it here. And it is really worrying because it sets out rather graphically the...

Banking Crisis, State Aids and Commission Guidance

Posted on October 14, 2008
As we announced a few days ago, the Commission has now issued its new guidance on how governments of member States can spend vast sums to try to save all those bankrupt banks in the EU. And get away with...

Citizenship, Free Movement, Surnames and Private International Law: Case C-353/06

Posted on October 14, 2008
Some time ago, in 2006, we noted a strange case, C-96/04Standesamt Stadt Niebüll in which the Court of Justice declined jurisdiction to respond to a preliminary question referred by a national court exercising an administrative rather than a judicial function...

Banking Crisis, State Aids and What is to Come

Posted on October 09, 2008
Ms. Kroes, the member of the Commission responsible for State aid control and antitrust recently addressed the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament. Her speech, which gives some indication of the calamitous state of the banking sector...

Appointments to the Court of Justice in October 2009

Posted on October 09, 2008
According to a recent, publicly accessible letter from the President of the Court of Justice, the term of office of thirteen judges and four advocates general expires on October 6th 2009. Now that is a lot of members of the...

Increase in Antitrust Fines and Counterclaims: Case T-69/04

Posted on October 08, 2008
The Court of First Instance handed down a couple of judgments dealing with antitrust. We won't cover them all. So let's just look at one for now, Case T-69/04 Schunk and Schunk Kohlenstoff-Technik v Commission. It is quite an odd...

Ombudsman and European Investment Bank Conclude Memorandum of Understanding

Posted on October 04, 2008
The European Ombudsman and the European Investment Bank have concluded a "Memorandum of Understanding" on how complaints into maladministration by the bank should be handled. What is striking is the expansive and reactionary definition of "maladministration" which the Ombudsman puts...

Duration of Proceedings and Joined Cases C-120/06 P & C-121/06 P

Posted on October 01, 2008
A while ago we noted the Court of Justice's judgment in Joined Cases C-120/06 P and C-121/06 P FIAMM and FIAMM Technologies v Council and Commission. There's an interesting little twist at the end of that judgment. The parties had...

Transparency, Discovery and Antitrust Damages Claims: Case T-403/05

Posted on September 25, 2008
Hot on the heels of the judgment of the Court of Justice in Joined Cases C-39/05 P and C-52/05 P Sweden and Turco v Council (noted here) in which the Court held that greater access to documents should be granted...

Council Decision: Accession and Ratification of 1996 Hague Convention on Parental Responsibility and the Protection of Children

Posted on June 12, 2008
The Council Decision of June 5th 2008 authorizing certain member States to ratify, or accede to the 1996 Hague Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Coöperation in respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children...

European Union Patent Courts & Judiciary

Posted on June 12, 2008
Work has started in earnest in the Council on a draft Agreement on the European Patent Judiciary. A revised Presidency working document dated May 14 2008 with a new version of the draft Agreement was released recently. (For a first...

Customs Union, New Customs Code, Regulation 450/2008

Posted on June 11, 2008
Let's not forget that the EU is first and foremost a customs union. The new Customs Code - Regulation 450/2008 - has been adopted by the Parliament and Council and published recently. It is quite a monument and an achievement....

Comitology, Interinstitutional Agreement between Commission and Parliament

Posted on June 10, 2008
More excitement on the comitology front! A while back we noted the new procedure called the "regulatory procedure with scrutiny" introduced by Council decision 2006/512/EC (and see here for an update). The European Parliament and the Commission have recently concluded...

Arbitration, Arbitration Clauses and Anti-suit Injunctions: Case C-185/07

Posted on June 10, 2008
According to the Court of Justice's web calendar, the Court heard today what may turn out to be one of the most significant cases in the commercial world for a very long time. Yes, you guessed right ! It was...

Powers of Institutions, Secondary Legal Basis, Asylum Policy: Case C-133/06

Posted on June 08, 2008
Catching up a little on some past judgments! The Court of Justice handed down an important judgment in Case C-133/06 Parliament v. Council on the practice of establishing "secondary legal bases", that is providing a basis, in an act adopted...

New blog on European Convention on Human Rights

Posted on June 07, 2008
We're really delighted to draw your attention to a new blog on the European Convention on Human Rights. It's called the ECHR Blog and is written by Antoine Buyse of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), Utrecht University .

Citizenship, discrimination and state compensation: Case C-164/07

Posted on June 07, 2008
The Court of Justice handed down an important judgment in Case C-164/07 James Wood v. Fonds de garantie des victimes des actes de terrorisme et d'autres infractions stating that EU law prohibits any discrimination on grounds of nationality which results...

House of Lords Report on Reform-Lisbon Treaty

Posted on May 29, 2008
How could this have happened ? We forgot to point you to the EU Select Committee of the British House of Lords report on the Lisbon Treaty. It is entitled "The Treaty of Lisbon: An Impact Assessment". It was published...

Privacy, Adequacy and Jersey

Posted on May 28, 2008
The Commission has recently published its decision finding that Jersey provides an adequate level of protection for personal data transferred from the EU. The decision is taken pursuant to Article 25 §6 of Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals...

Abuse of Dominant Position, Predation and Effects: Recent French Judgment

Posted on May 27, 2008
There's been quite a fuss lately at the EU level about Article 82 EC and whether there should be an illicit abuse of a dominant position only when the abusive behavior actually has deleterious effects on the market. The Commission's...

Mediation and Cross-Border Civil and Commercial Disputes: Directive 2008/52/EC

Posted on May 26, 2008
A new Directive - Directive 2008/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 21st 2008 on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters - has just been published. The purpose of Directive 2008/52/EC is to...

Wild Birds, Interim Measures and Malta: Case C-76/08 R

Posted on May 24, 2008
The President of the Court of Justice granted an injunction against Malta in Case C-76/08 R Commission v. Malta preventing it from adopting measures to allow the hunting of quails and turtle doves in the 2008 spring migration. The Commission...

Standing to Sue, Direct and Individual Concern and Panem et Circenses: Case C-125/06 P

Posted on May 17, 2008
A while ago, the Court of Justice handed down a significant judgment on the issue of the standing of individuals to challenge acts of the EU institutions. The judgment in Case C-125/06 P Commission v. Infront WM AG broadens a...

Consolidated Version of Treaties Published in OJ

Posted on May 13, 2008
The consolidated version of the Treaties taking account of the Lisbon-Reform Treaty amendments has now been published in the Official Journal. The citation is OJ 2008 C115, p. 1. You can find that version here. It includes the Protocols, Annexes,...

National Courts and the EU Judicial System: Draft Report of the European Parliament

Posted on May 07, 2008
Blogging has been light for a number of reasons but we'll do some catching up.... Back in June 2007 we noted the hearing that was held by the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament recently held an interesting hearing...

Consumer Guarantees, Defective Goods and Compensation for Use: Case C-404/06

Posted on April 24, 2008
The Court of Justice held in Case C-404/06 Quelle AG v Bundesverband der Verbraucherzentralen und Verbraucherverbände, that Directive 1999/44/EC on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees precludes national legislation under which a seller who has...

Energy Market Report

Posted on April 22, 2008
The Commission has published a report on the implementation of the gas and electricity markets. You can download the report - COM (2008) 192 final - here. Of course, creating an efficient European-wide market for gas and electricity in such...

Consolidated Treaty with Lisbon Treaty Amendments

Posted on April 16, 2008
Admit it ! You never thought it was going to happen. At last, a consolidated version of the Treaties incorporating the Lisbon-Reform Treaty amendments has been made available here. And in all official languages too. Here's the link to the...

Privacy and Search Engines like Google: Opinion of Art. 29 Working Party

Posted on April 14, 2008
The Working Party set up pursuant to Article 29 of Directive 95/46/EC on data protection has issued an interesting opinion on the privacy issues raised by search engines like Google or Yahoo. You can find the opinion ("WP 148") here....

Minimum Wages, Collective Agreements and Posted Workers: Case C-346/06

Posted on April 09, 2008
The Court of Justice has handed down an great judgment in Case C-346/06 Dirk Rüffert v. Land Niedersachsen defending the rights of workers posted from a low wage state to work in a high wage state. The Court held that...

Mobile phones to be allowed on planes

Posted on April 07, 2008
The Commission has adopted a decision - not yet published in the Official Journal but available here - allowing the use of mobile phones on board aircraft during flights. So, the relative peace and quiet of air travel comes to...

Review of Regulatory Agencies

Posted on April 06, 2008
Those interested in administrative law would do well to look at the Commission's review of regulatory agencies entitled "European Agencies - The Way Forward" (COM(2008) 135 final). That document is accompanied by another one, referenced SEC(2008) 323, but the Commission...

White Paper on Antitrust Damages Actions

Posted on April 04, 2008
The long awaited White Paper on Damages Actions for Breach of the EC antitrust rules has been made public. As you probably know, it is almost impossible to get damages for breach of the antitrust rules in Europe. Instead, if...

2007 Annual Reports from the Courts

Posted on April 02, 2008
Following on from the presentation of the statistics we noted here, the 2007 Annual Reports of the Court of Justice, the Court of First Instance and the Civil Service Tribunal are now available online at least in a provisional form...

Conflict of Laws and EU Law

Posted on April 02, 2008
Dash over to the Conflict of Laws blog. There's a terrific guest editorial by Professor Horatia Muir-Watt on "Reshaping Private International Law in a Changing World". It contains many insights that a student of EU law would appreciate. Just go...

Same Sex Partnerships, Survivor's Pension and Discrimination: Case C-267/07

Posted on April 01, 2008
The Court of Justice handed down a judgment in Case C-267/06 Tadao Maruko v. Verorgungsanstalt des deutschen Bühnen that is a step, a small step, toward the recognition of gay marriage in EC law. Mr. Maruko lived in Germany with...

Court Statistics for 2007

Posted on March 30, 2008
We should have spotted this earlier but didn't. Sorry about that. The Court of Justice has recently published its statistics for 2007 in a press release. There's cause for celebration and cause for concern too. Things at the Court of...

Van Gend en Loos Revisited

Posted on March 26, 2008
Here's an interesting article by Professor Daniel Halberstam of Michigan Law School that discusses Case 26-62 Van Gend en Loos and Marbury v. Madison. This is what the abstract says: The European Court of Justice's landmark decision in Van Gend...

Jurisdiction of the Court of Justice in Police and Criminal Matters: Article 35 TEU

Posted on March 25, 2008
Back in December 2005, we noted here the state of play on declarations accepting the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice to give preliminary rulings on the acts referred to in Article 35 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU)....

Better Regulation, Administrative Burdens and Fast Track Actions

Posted on March 11, 2008
So perhaps we were a bit skeptical about "Better Regulation" when we wrote up about the Commission's 2007 Annual Report a while back. It looks like we were being unfair. The Commission has recently published a report, COM(2008) 141 final,...

Internet Sales, DVDs, Censorship and the Free Movement of Goods: Case C-244/06

Posted on March 09, 2008
Here's a neat judgment of the Court of Justice on the free movement of goods. The case concerns the censorship and classification of videos and DVDs sold by mail order and over the internet. The judgment is a neat one...

Update on Urgent Preliminary Ruling Procedure

Posted on March 06, 2008
We noted a short while ago the introduction of the urgent preliminary ruling procedure in the area of freedom, security and justice. The procedure is effective from March 1st, 2008. The Court of Justice has issued a press release summarizing...

Fifth Commission Report on Citizenship

Posted on March 05, 2008
If there is one interesting development in the case law of the Court of Justice, it is that which concerns citizenship. Take this case, for example, or that one. The Commission publishes a report every so often on "Citizenship of...

Microsoft Again: Mega Penalty Payment

Posted on February 27, 2008
The Commission has imposed a penalty payment of ? 899 million (US $ 1,359 million) on Microsoft for non-compliance with its obligations under the Commission?s March 2004 Decision prior to 22 October 2007. The Decision, adopted pursuant to Article 24(2)...

Annual Report of Commission

Posted on February 25, 2008
The Commission has published its Annual Report for 2007. There's a special web page devoted to it here. The report is well worth looking at because it contains such of a wealth of information, despite some of the propaganda-speak. Look...

New Judge Appointed to the Court of Justice

Posted on February 23, 2008
Mr. Jean-Jacques Kasel, from Luxembourg, has been appointed to the bench at the Court of Justice. He replaces Judge Romain Schintgen. You can find a brief resume in the Court's press release here. Judge Kasel was sworn in on January...

Choice of law, Consumer Contracts and Law of Consumer

Posted on February 17, 2008
A recent trawl of some questions posed by the European Parliament to the Commission revealed this interesting question and answer about the applicability and scope of the law of the state of the consumer in cross border transactions. Look at...

Review Procedure before the Court of Justice: Draft Amendments to the Rules of Procedure

Posted on February 11, 2008
Article 225 § 2 EC provides: The Court of First Instance shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine actions or proceedings brought against decisions of the judicial panels set up under Article 225a. Decisions given by the Court of First...

Justice Forum: Networking in the Area of Justice, Freedom and Security

Posted on February 10, 2008
The Commission has announced that it will set up a "Justice Forum" on April 15th 2008 to talk about the application of the laws in the area of justice, freedom and security. According to a recent press release, the Justice...

The Rise of Comparative Law (And EU Law as Catalyst)

Posted on February 05, 2008
Professor Bénédicte Fauvarque-Cosson of the University of Paris II - Panthéon-Assas - has just published a monograph on how the creation EU law has had an impact on comparative law and comparative law education. The abstract states: Over the past...

File Sharing, Kazaa, Intellectual Property Rights and Privacy: Case C-275/06

Posted on February 03, 2008
The Court of Justice has handed down an interesting judgment in Case C-275/06 Promusicae v. Telefónica on the balance to be struck between privacy and the effective protection of intellectual property rights to prevent peer-to-peer musical file transfers...

Great Grahnlaw Blog

Posted on February 03, 2008
And while we're on the subject of great EU blogs, look at Ralf Grahn's blog here. Ralf is a lawyer in Finland and his blog, called "Grahnlaw", is about the politics, the law and the future of the EU. He...

Antitrust Fine on E.ON Energie for Breach of Seal During Inspection

Posted on February 03, 2008
In the first case of its kind, the Commission imposed a fine of ?38,000,000 (US$ 56,222,913.74) on E.ON Energie AG, the German energy group, for breaking a seal fixed to a door overnight to prevent the disappearance of documents in...

EU for US blog

Posted on February 02, 2008
An insightful comment left by Jane Margaret happily drew our attention to her "EU for US blog". Frankly, we didn't know about the EU for US blog which presents "the EU filtered by a quiet American". And it gives a...

New Rules of Procedure for Conference of National Parliaments

Posted on February 02, 2008
National Parliaments, having long been sidelined either by the executives of the member States or by the European Parliament itself, are making a comeback in European affairs. Back in July 2006 we noted how the Commission intended to send all...

Preliminary Rulings in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: Urgent Procedure Adopted

Posted on January 29, 2008
Some time ago we posted a note about future amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice to provide for an urgent procedure for preliminary rulings in the areas of freedom, security and justice. Those amendments have...

Cosmetics, Free Movement and Harmonization Directive: Case C-257/06

Posted on January 29, 2008
The Court of Justice handed down a neat judgment in Case C-257/06 Roby Profumi SrL v. Comune di Parma dealing with the relationship between a directive that harmonizes the law completely and the free movement provisions of the EC Treaty....

Article 228 EC - Portugal Ordered to Pay Penalty Payment: Case C-70/06

Posted on January 28, 2008
The Court of Justice in Case C-70/06 Commission v. Portugal ordered Portugal to pay a periodic penalty payment of ?19,392 (US$ 28,493.64) per day for failing to comply with its previous judgment in Case C-275/03 Commission v. Portugal. In its...

Ratification of Reform-Lisbon Treaty in the United Kingdom

Posted on January 21, 2008
The ratification process of the Reform-Lisbon Treaty is underway in the United Kingdom. That process is sure to generate some interesting, even heated, debates. The British House of Commons Library has published an informative research paper on the bill that,...

Single and Continuous Infringement, Limitation Periods and Antitrust: Joined Cases T-101/05 and T-111/05

Posted on January 15, 2008
The judgment in Joined Cases T-101/05 and T-111/05 BASF and UCB v. Commission is noteworthy for what it says about the problem of finding "a single and continuous infringement" of the antitrust rules. According to Article 25 §1 b) of...

Increase in Antitrust Fine and Unlimited Jurisdiction of the CFI: Joined Cases T-101/05 and T-111/05

Posted on January 14, 2008
In its judgment in Joined Cases T-101/05 and T-111/05 BASF and UCB v. Commission, the Court of First Instance did a remarkable thing: It increased the fine imposed on an undertaking for a breach of the antitrust rules. That is...

Reform Treaty: Taxonomy of Competence

Posted on January 13, 2008
One of the most important changes brought about by the Reform-Lisbon treaty is the establishment of a taxonomy of competence: It defines - or at least attempts to - who does what in the EC. The new Treaty maintains the...

Freedom to Provide Services, Honorary Positions, Expenses and Teaching: Case C-281/06

Posted on January 12, 2008
The Court of Justice handed down a neat judgment recently in Case C-281/06 Jundt on the freedom to provide services and the right to exempt expenses paid for teaching in another member State from income tax. The facts are as...

Population, Voting and Article 205 EC

Posted on January 07, 2008
You'll remember no doubt that Article 205 §4 EC reads: ?4. When a decision is to be adopted by the Council by a qualified majority, a member of the Council may request verification that the Member States constituting the qualified...

Reform Treaty - Institutional Changes, part 5: Qualified Majority Voting

Posted on January 06, 2008
Let's continue our mini-series on the new Treaty. One of the biggest changes that the Lisbon-Reform Treaty brings about concerns qualified majority voting. First, the new Treaty extends the scope of qualified majority voting. 24 existing legal bases currently requiring...

Happy holidays

Posted on December 28, 2007
Happy holidays to all our readers. We're taking a short break and will return to blogging in early January 2008. Enjoy the break, too.

Strikes, Collective Agreements and Freedom to Provide Services: Case C-341/05

Posted on December 19, 2007
After the judgment in Case C-438/05 Viking on the freedom of establishment we noted up recently, here's the judgment in Case C-341/05 Laval un Partneri Ltd on the free movement of services. In its judgment in Case C-438/05 the Court...

Lisbon Treaty and Charter Published

Posted on December 17, 2007
The Reform-Lisbon Treaty has been published officially now in the Official Journal. You can find it here together with the protocols and the Final Act. But beware, that is not a consolidated version. The Charter of Fundamental Rights has been...

Official Languages, No Translation, No Enforceability: Case C-161/06

Posted on December 12, 2007
Now here is a curious case ! In its judgment in Case C-161/06 Skoma-Lux the Court of Justice held that the obligations contained in EC legislation which has not been published in the Official Journal in the language of the...