Action brought on 4 August 2014 — Gascogne Sack Deutschland and Gascogne v Court of Justice

(Case T-577/14)

Language of the case: French

Parties

Applicants: Gascogne Sack Deutschland GmbH (Wieda, Germany) and Gascogne (Saint-Paul-lès-Dax, France) (represented by: F. Puel and E. Durand, lawyers)

Defendant: Court of Justice of the European Union

Form of order sought

The applicants claim that the Court should:

declare that the European Union is non-contractually liable for the proceedings before the General Court which failed to have regard to the requirement that the case be dealt with within a reasonable time;

Consequently, it should:

order the European Union to pay full and sufficient compensation for the material and non-material damage which the applicants have suffered as a result of the European Union’s unlawful conduct, corresponding to the following amounts, together with compensatory and default interest at the rate applied by the European Central Bank to its main refinancing operations, increased by two percentage points, starting from the date when the application was submitted:

EUR 1 193 467 for losses suffered as a result of paying the additional legal interest applied to the nominal amount of the fine beyond a reasonable period;

EUR 187 571 for losses suffered as a result of making additional bank guarantee payments beyond a reasonable period;

EUR 2 000 000 for profits lost and/or losses suffered as a result of ‘uncertainty’, and

EUR 500 000 for the non-material damage suffered;

In the alternative, if the Court finds that the amount of damage suffered needs to be re-assessed, it should order the commissioning of an expert’s report in accordance with Article 65(d), Article 66(1) and Article 70 of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court;

In any event, the Court should order the European Union to pay the costs of the present proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicants rely on a single plea in law, alleging infringement of the second paragraph of Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union owing to the excessive duration of the proceedings before the General Court, that is, infringement of their fundamental right to a hearing within a reasonable time.