Judgment of the General Court of 7 October 2015 — Accorinti and Others v ECB

(Case T-79/13) ¹

(Non-contractual liability — Economic and monetary policy — ECB — National central banks — Restructuring of Greek public debt — Programme for purchasing securities — Securities exchange agreement for the sole benefit of central banks in the Eurosystem — Private sector involvement — Collective action clauses — Credit enhancement in the form of a buyback programme intended to support the quality of the securities as collateral — Private creditors — Sufficiently serious breach of a rule of law conferring rights on individuals — Legitimate expectations — Equal treatment — Liability for a lawful legislative measure — Unusual and special damage)

Language of the case: Italian

Parties

Applicant: Alessandro Accorinti (Nichelino, Italy) and 214 other applicants whose names are listed in the Annex to the judgment (represented by: S. Sutti, R. Spelta and G. Sanna, lawyers)

Defendant: European Central Bank (ECB) (represented by: initially S. Bening and P. Papapaschalis, then P. Senkovic and P. Papapaschalis, and finally P. Senkovic, acting as Agents, and by E. Castellani, B. Kaiser and T. Lübbig, lawyers)

Re:

Action for damages for the harm suffered by the applicants as a result of, in particular, the adoption by the ECB of Decision 2012/153/EU of 5 March 2012 on the eligibility of marketable debt instruments issued or fully guaranteed by the Hellenic Republic in the context of the Hellenic Republic’s debt exchange offer (OJ 2012 L 77, p. 19) and of other decisions of the European Central Bank taken in the context of the restructuring of Greek debt.

Operative part of the judgment

The Court:

Dismisses the action;

Orders Mr Alessandro Accorinti and the other applicants whose names are listed in the Annex to pay the costs.

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¹ OJ C 101, 6.4.2013.