INTRODUCTION
1. This work is a case referral tool and commentary in relation to competition cases1 ruled upon in 2014 by the European Court of Justice and the General Court. There are 25 European Court of Justice cases, including 5 preliminary rulings, and 36 General Court cases. It is intended for those who wish to read the key points arising in these cases or to consider the evolving jurisprudence. As such it is also intended to help those considering an appeal to the Court and those engaged in an appeal.
The work is composed of three parts.
2. The first part comprises tables, providing case citations and lists to aid cross-referencing, whether to the cases, legislation or by subject. Two methods are used to identify the subjects raised. First, the Court's own digest of cases, which is replicated in a table and relevant cases identified against each subject. Second, the Court identifies key words in a case. These key words appear in the case templates and are replicated in a table with the relevant cases identified against each key word/phrase.
3. To facilitate use of this work, the documents are in free text pdf search format. In addition, all tables containing case references are linked to the case report, allowing the reader to click on the case reference and go directly to the case report in this work.
4. The second part is a set of sections that provide a general review and address themes arising, before turning to more detailed observations on arguments that were notable because they were novel, well made or otherwise of interest. There is a section dealing with cases that were referrals to the Court from tribunals of the EU Member States. This second part also has a section providing a practical guide to the practice and procedure of an appeal, whether to the General Court or the European Court of Justice.
5. The third part uses a template that is completed for each of the 61 cases that were ruled upon in 2014. In relation to admissibility, procedural matters as well as substantive matters the paragraphs in the ruling are identified and quoted verbatim, with minor language changes to facilitate a stand alone reading. The effect is to allow a condensed reading of key points, without subjective input on what the Court stated. There is subjectivity in the selection of the paragraphs and so the possibility of omission is recognised. The cases are in chronological order according to the date of the ruling. For those cases where the language of the pleading was not English and as at the date of first publication of this work there was no official translation into English, we have used the French language as this remains the working language of the Court for any case. As and when the official translation becomes available, the web-version of this publication will be updated.
6. In this work we use the new case citation system adopted by the Court. However, in the case templates and elsewhere as thought useful the former case citation is also provided. This is consistent with the Court's current practice of using both citation systems. To those not familiar, the old citation system, for example T-286/09 provides information as to the forum (in this example "T" means the first instance General Court), the number of the instrument (286), in this case an appeal, in the Court's register that year and the year of deposit of the instrument (2009). Under the new citation, for the same example case the citation is ECLI:EU:T:2014:547 where the information provided relates to the end of the procedure, namely the year of the ruling (2014) and the number in chronological order given to the deposited instrument, in this instance a ruling, for that year in the Court's register (547). So case T-286/09 and case ECLI:EU:T:2014:547 are the same case.
TABLE OF CASES
(By new and former citation)
Footnotes
1 State aid cases are not addressed.
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