Action brought on 6 August 2013 – Tilly-Sabco v Commission

(Case T-397/13)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicant: Tilly-Sabco (Guerlesquin, France) (represented by: R. Milchior and F. Le Roquais, lawyers)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:

declare admissible the action for annulment of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 689/2013 of 18 July 2013 fixing the export refunds on poultry meat (OJEU L 196/13 of 19 July 2013);

annul Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 689/2013 of 18 July 2013 fixing the export refunds on poultry meat (OJEU L 196/13 of 19 July 2013);

order the Commission to pay the costs of these proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on five pleas in law.

1.    First plea in law, alleging abuse of process, since the internal rules of the management committee were infringed in so far as the Commission did not permit the committee to consider all the information necessary in order to give its opinion on the draft text to be adopted in accordance with the procedure laid down in Regulation No 182/2011. ¹

2.    Second plea in law, alleging a procedural irregularity and lack of competence, since the contested regulation was adopted under the signature of the Director-General for Agriculture and Rural Development on behalf of the President of the Commission, without it being shown that an act of delegation and a declaration of self-certification exist.

3.    Third plea in law, alleging inadequacy of the statement of reasons for the contested regulation, in so far as:

recital 6 in the preamble to the regulation cannot constitute a sufficient statement of reasons for a regulation which departs from the normal practice of the Commission of fixing the amount of refunds according to the difference between the price of the goods concerned on the Community market, on the one hand, and on the world market, on the other, and

the statement of reasons is inconsistent and contradictory in that it is an identical reproduction of the earlier Implementing Regulation No 360/2013 without taking into account the progressive criteria set out in Article 164 of Regulation No 1234/2007. ²

4.    Fourth plea in law, alleging infringement of the law or at least a manifest error of assessment, since the information furnished by the Commission to the management committee does not satisfy the criteria laid down in Article 164(3) of Regulation No 1234/2007.

5.    Fifth plea in law, alleging infringement of legitimate expectations, in so far as the applicant legitimately expected, following assurances received from the Commission, the system of positive refunds to continue until the end of the current common agricultural policy.

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¹     Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 2011 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers (OJ 2011 L 55, p.13).

²     Council Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 of 22 October 2007 establishing a common organisation of agricultural markets and on specific provisions for certain agricultural products (Single CMO Regulation) (OJ 2007 L 299, p. 1).