List of European Court of Justice rulings


The following is a list of notable judgments of the European Court of Justice.

Principles of Union Law

Direct effect

Treaties, Regulations and Decisions

  • Van Gend en Loos 26/62 ECR 1
"The Community constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the States have limited their sovereign rights".
"The Court... has the jurisdiction to answer... questions referred that... relate to the interpretation of the treaty."
  • Franz Grad 9/70 ECR-825
  • Commission v Italy 39/72 ECR 101
  • Reyners 2/74 ECR 631
  • Defrenne II ECR 455
  • Amsterdam Bulb 50/76 ECR 137
States can provide in national legislation for appropriate sanctions which are not provided for in the regulation, and can continue to regulate various related issues which are not covered in the regulation
  • Zaera 126/86 ECR 3697
  • Azienda Agricola C-403/98 ECR I-103
  • Steinberg T-17/10 625
  • Sharif University T-181/13 607

    Directives

  • Van Duyn v Home Office 41/74 ECR 1337
  • Ratti 148/78 ECR 1629
Member States are precluded by their failure to implement a directive properly from refusing to recognise its binding effect in cases where it is pleaded against them, thus they cannot rely on their failure to implement the directive in time.
  • Becker 8/81 ECR 53
  • von Colson 14/83 ECR 1891
  • Kolpinghuis Nijmegen 80/86 ECR 3969
There is no obligation of harmonious interpretation where the national measure, interpreted in the light of the directive, would impose criminal liability.
  • Fratelli Costanzo 103/88 ECR 1839
  • Foster C-188/89 ECR I-3313
  • Marshall v Southampton and South-West Hampshire Area Health Authority Case 152/84 ECR I-4367
  • Faccini Dori C-91/92 ECR I-3325
  • CIA Security C-194/94 ECR I-2201
  • Arcaro C-168/95 ECR I-4705
Notwithstanding the Kolpinghuis ruling, the creation of any other kind of legal disadvantage of detriment, save for criminal liability, is very well possible.
  • Unilever Italia C-443/98 ECR I-7535
  • Commission v Spain, case C-417/99, 13 September 2001: failure to designate the competent authorities and bodies responsible for implementing Directive 96/62/EC on ambient air quality. Directives are to be transposed into national law "with precision, clarity and transparency".

    Primacy

  • Costa v ENEL 6/64 ECR 585
Community law takes precedence over the Member States' own domestic law.
  • Simmenthal II 106/77 ECR 629
National courts are obliged to set aside provisions of national law which are incompatible with Community law. The Court ruled that:
  • Marleasing C-106/89 ECR I-7321
National law must be interpreted and applied, insofar as possible, so as to avoid a conflict with a Community rule.
Duty on national courts to secure the full effectiveness of Community law, even where it is necessary to create a national remedy where none had previously existed.

Enforcement of EU law

EU law has not established its own system for its enforcement or for aggrieved parties to seek remedies for breach of EU law. In the absence of such a system,
  • Joined Cases C-430/93 and C-431/93 Van Schijndel and van Veen introduced the principles of equivalence and effectiveness
  • Joined Cases C-222/05 to C-225/05, van der Weerd et al, a series of Dutch cases involving the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality: Community law does not require a national court... to raise of its own motion a plea alleging infringement of the provisions of Community legislation, since neither the principle of equivalence nor the principle of effectiveness require it to do so.

    Rejection of the reciprocity principles of general international law

  • Commission v. Luxembourg and Belgium, joined cases 90 and 91/63 ECR 625
"n view, … international law allows a party, injured by the failure of another party to perform its obligations, to withhold performance of its own … However, this relationship between the obligations of parties cannot be recognized under Community law... The treaty is not limited to creating reciprocal obligations... but establishes a new legal order... he basic concept of the treaty requires that the Member States not take the law into their own hands."

Fundamental rights

  • Stauder 29/69 ECR 419
"Fundamental rights enshrined in the general principles of Community law and protected by the Court."
  • Internationale Handelsgesellschaft 11/70 ECR 1125
Fundamental rights are an integral part of the general principles of law the observance of which the Court ensures.
  • Nold 4/73 ECR 491, §13
When protecting fundamental rights, "the Court is bound to draw inspiration from constitutional traditions common to the Member States, and it cannot therefore uphold measures which are incompatible with fundamental rights recognised and protected by the Constitutions of those States." The Court can also draw on international human rights treaties to which Member States have collaborated or are signatories.
  • Carpenter C-60/00 ECR I-6279
Fundamental rights affect the scope and application of Community law. In Carpenter, the Court weaved principles of respect for family and private life from Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights into its analysis of the rights of Union citizens. It concluded that the right of a minor child to reside in a Member State under Community law brought with it a corollary right for his mother to reside there as well.
The legislative organs of the union cannot make laws which allow private sector organisations to discriminate on the grounds of gender even if such discrimination is based on relevant and accurate actuarial and statistical data.
  • Minister voor Immigratie en Asiel C-199/12 720

    Law of the institutions

Acts

  • Mandelli 3/67 ECR 25
Acts of the European institutions must be supported by sufficient reasoning, the validity of which shall be examined by the Court.

Legislative process

  • Variola 34/73 ECR 981
  • Roquette Frères v Council 138/79 ECR 3333
  • Germany v Commission 24/62 ECR 131
  • Tariff Preferences case 45/86 ECR 1493
  • Beus 5/67 ECR 83
  • Tobacco Advertising case C-376/98 ECR I-8419
  • Opinion 2/94 ECR I-1759: The European Community did not have the power under the treaties to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights: see Opinion 2/13.
  • Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami v Parliament and Council C-583/11: a 'legislative act' is defined by the procedure used to adopt it.
  • Parliament v Council C-65/93 ECR I-643

    Liability

  • Plaumann v Commission 25/62 ECR 199
The Plaumann test sets out the criteria for non-privileged applicants to prove individual concern: 'Applicants must show that the decision affects them by reason of certain attributes which are peculiar to them or by reason of circumstances in which they are differentiated from all other persons and by virtue of these factors distinguishes them individually just as in the case of the person addressed.'
  • Codorníu v Council C-309/89 ECR I-1853
In this case the court took a more liberal approach than the restrictive Plaumann test for establishing individual concern, which was, however, not followed in judgements thereafter.

Access to documents

Where access to Commission documents has been requested by a third party, the Commission cannot claim that it does not hold the requested documents without also providing "credible explanations" to enable the public and the Court "to understand why those documents cannot be located".

Interim orders

Article 186 of the Treaty of Rome stated that the Court "may, in any cases referred to it, make any necessary interim order". Article 39 of the Treaty of Nice's Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice states that "the President of the Court may, by way of summary procedure... prescribe interim measures in pursuance of Article 243 of the EC Treaty or Article 158 of the EAEC Treaty".
In Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Belgium, the president dismissed an application for interim measures submitted by the commission on 11 March 1994 because the commission had "not displayed the diligence to be expected". The commission had been aware of an alleged breach of the procurement directives in October 1993, and had referred on 8 February 1994 to its "intention" to seek the suspension of a public supplies contract, but did not apply for an interim order until 11 March 1994.

Competition

s on competition law include Consten & Grundig v Commission and United Brands v Commission.
  • Case C-185/95: Baustahlgewebe v. Commission. In 1989 the European Commission had adopted a determination that 14 producers of welded steel mesh had engaged in unlawful restrictions of competition. German company Baustahlgewebe GmbH appealed the decision on 20 October 1989 and the Court of First Instance did not rule on the case until 6 April 1995, five years and six months later. The Court of Justice held that the case had not been determined within a reasonable time and reduced the ECU 3 million fine by ECU 50,000.
  • Case C-231/03: Coname v Comune di Cingia de' Botti in Italy. The court established that transparency obligations apply to the award of a concession for the management of the public gas distribution service.
  • Case C-501/06 P: GlaxoSmithKline Services and Others v Commission and Others, joined with cases C-513/06 P, C-515/06 P and C‑519/06 P: four appeals brought under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, 2006, regarding Article 81 of the Treaty of Rome.
  • Prezes Urzędu Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów v Tele2 Polska sp. z o.o. : the Polish national competition authority determined that Telekomunikacja Polska SA was not abusing a dominant position on the market. The ECJ ruled that only the European Commission has competence to make such a decision.
  • Simba Toys T-450/09 983
  • C-68/12 - Slovenská sporiteľňa et al. - three banks colluded against a non-banking financial institution which was alleged to be operating illegally in the Slovak Republic. The court ruled that the allegation of illegal operation was irrelevant to determining whether the banks' collusion interfered with the structure of the market and in particular with the interests of competition itself.
  • C-230/16 - Coty Germany GmbH v Parfümerie Akzente GmbH - a supplier of luxury goods is able to prevent its authorised distributors from selling them on a third-party internet platform.
  • Judgments were issued collectively on 1 February 2018 in four cases concerning anti-competitive behaviour and concerted practices in the international air freight forwarding services market:
  • *Case C-261/16: P Kuhne + Nagel International and others v European Commission, regarding a cartel agreeing surcharges on export declarations, referred to as the "new export system" cartel
  • *Case C-263/16: P Schenker v Commission
  • *Case C-264/16: P Deutsche Bahn and others v Commission
  • *Case C-271/16: P Panalpina World Transport and others v Commission