Cases T-494/08 to T-500/08 and T-509/08

Ryanair Ltd

v

European Commission

(Access to documents – Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 – Documents relating to procedures for reviewing State aid – Implied refusals of access – Express refusals of access – Exception concerning protection of the purpose of inspections, investigations and audits – Duty to carry out a concrete, individual examination)

Summary of the Judgment

1.      European Union – Institutions – Right of public access to documents – Regulation No 1049/2001 – Period prescribed for responding to an application for access to documents – Extension – Conditions

(European Parliament and Council Regulation No 1049/2001, Art. 8)

2.      Actions for annulment – Interest in bringing proceedings – Action brought against an implied decision on the part of the Commission to refuse access to documents – Decision withdrawn as a result of the Commission adopting a subsequent express decision – Applicant having brought, in the alternative, an action against the latter decision – No longer any legal interest in bringing proceedings

(Art. 230 EC; European Parliament and Council Regulation No 1049/2001)

3.      Acts of the institutions – Presumption of validity – Non-existent measure – Meaning

4.      European Union – Institutions – Right of public access to documents – Regulation No 1049/2001 – Exceptions to the right of access to documents – Protection of the purpose of inspections, investigations and audits – Scope

(European Parliament and Council Regulation 1049/2001, Art. 4(2), third indent)

5.      Acts of the institutions – Statement of reasons – Obligation – Scope – Plea alleging infringement of the obligation to state reasons – Plea alleging inaccurate statement of reasons – Distinction

(Art. 253 EC)

1.      The time-limit laid down by Article 8(1) of Regulation No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents is mandatory and cannot be extended save in the circumstances provided for in Article 8(2) of that regulation, without depriving that article of all practical effect, since the applicant could not know precisely the date from which he could bring the action or complaint provided for in Article 8(3) of that regulation.

(see para. 39)

2.      An action for annulment brought by a natural or legal person is admissible only in so far as that person has an interest in the annulment of the contested measure. That interest in bringing proceedings must, in the light of the purpose of the action, exist at the stage of lodging the action, failing which the action will be inadmissible. Furthermore, the interest in bringing proceedings must continue until the final decision, failing which there will be no need to adjudicate, which presupposes that the action must be likely, if successful, to procure an advantage for the party bringing it. If the applicant’s interest in bringing proceedings disappears in the course of proceedings, a decision of the Court on the merits cannot bring him any benefit.

As regards an action for the annulment of implied refusal decisions in a procedure for public access to Commission documents governed by Regulation No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, which decisions the Commission has in fact withdrawn by adopting subsequent express refusal decisions, such an action is inadmissible, since the applicant has no interest in bringing proceedings against those implied decisions by reason of the adoption, before the action was commenced, of the express decisions, annulment of which it seeks in the alternative. Indeed, any annulment of implied decisions of that kind on grounds of a procedural defect could do no more than give rise to new decisions, identical in substance to the express decisions. Moreover, consideration of the actions against those implied decisions cannot be justified either by the objective of preventing the alleged unlawfulness from recurring or by that of facilitating potential actions for damages, since it is possible to attain both those objectives through consideration of the actions brought against the express decisions.

(see paras 41-48)

3.      A finding that a measure is non-existent should be reserved for measures which exhibit particularly serious and manifest defects. The gravity of the consequences attaching to a finding that a measure of an institution is non-existent requires that, for reasons of legal certainty, such a finding be reserved for quite extreme situations.

(see para. 49)

4.      For the purposes of interpreting the exception laid down in the third indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, it is appropriate to take account of the fact that interested parties other than the Member State concerned in the procedures for reviewing State aid do not have the right to consult the documents in the Commission’s administrative file, and, therefore, to acknowledge the existence of a general presumption that disclosure of documents in the administrative file in principle undermines the protection of the purpose of investigations.

Thus, the Commission may, pursuant to the third indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation No 1049/2001, refuse access to all the documents relating to the procedure for the review of State aid, and may do so without first making a concrete, individual examination of those documents.

That general presumption does not exclude the right of those interested parties to demonstrate that a given document disclosure of which has been requested is not covered by that presumption, or that there is an overriding public interest in disclosure of the document concerned by virtue of Article 4(2) of Regulation No 1049/2001.

(see paras 70-72)

5.      The statement of reasons required under Article 253 EC must disclose in a clear and unequivocal fashion the reasoning followed by the institution responsible for authorship of the measure, in such a way as to enable the persons concerned to ascertain the reasons for the measure adopted and to uphold their rights and to enable the court to exercise its power of review. It cannot, however, be necessary for the reasoning to go into all the various relevant facts and points of law. The question whether the statement of reasons for a decision meets those requirements must be assessed with regard not only to its wording but also to its context and to all the legal rules governing the matter in question.

In addition, the infringement of the duty to state reasons constitutes a plea of infringement of an essential procedural requirement, which, as such, is different from a plea that the grounds of the decision are inaccurate, the latter plea being a matter to be reviewed by the Court when it examines the validity of that decision.

(see paras 96-97)