The Court of First Instance has held that the Commission misapplied the public interest exception (for court proceedings) to the rule of public access to documents.
Certain quantities of beef ("Hilton Beef") from Argentina may be imported into the Community free of any levies and subject only to duty in accordance with the applicable common customs tariff. Following the discovery of the falsification of a number of certificates of authenticity, the German authorities sought recovery of the import duty from Interporc. Interporc then requested remission of that duty. In January 1996, the Commission, in response to questions raised by Germany, declared that the request was not justified.
In February 1996, Interporc sent the Commission an application for access to certain documents relating imports of Hilton Beef. The Commission rejected that application for access.
In its judgment in the first Interporc case (T-124/96 of 6 February 1998), the Court of First Instance held that the statement of reasons for the Commission's refusal to grant Interporc access to the documents in question was inadequate and consequently annulled the decision refusing access.
In response to that annulment, the Commission adopted a fresh decision again refusing access to the documents in question. It justified its decision, first, as regards its own documents, on the basis of the public interest exception for court proceedings - taking the view that the public could not have access to them where they related to other proceedings before the Court of First Instance - and, second, as regards the documents emanating from the Member States and the Argentine authorities, on the basis of the authorship rule.
Interporc applied to the Court for annulment of that decision too.
The Court of First Instance first makes the point that exceptions to the rule of public access to documents must be strictly applied. The confidentiality of documents relating to court proceedings is, for public interest reasons, one of the permissible exceptions to this rule.
However, the Court of First Instance takes the view that this exception in respect of court proceedings does not entitle the Commission to evade the obligation to disclose documents drawn up in connection with a purely administrative matter.
The Court of First Instance has therefore held that the Commission is not justified in relying indiscriminately on that exception. Accordingly, the Court has annulled the Commission's decision in so far as it refuses to grant access to Commission documents.
On the other hand, the Court has upheld the Commission's contention that it is not required to disclose documents of which it is not the author. The Court of First Instance has therefore upheld the decision in so far as it refuses access to such documents.
NB : an appeal against this decision, limited to points of law, may be brought before the Court of Justice of the European Communities within two months of its notification.
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