In the context of the reform of the structure of the courts of the EU, new rules were adopted in order to render the appeals before the Court of Justice more efficient and to enhance legal protection in the EU.
Indeed, as of 1st of May 2019, a new filtering mechanism for appeals has been put in place in order to enable the Court to concentrate on the cases that require its full attention. To this end, the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice have been amended accordingly.
More specifically, under the new rules, appeals brought in cases which have already been considered twice, first by an independent board of appeal, then by the General Court, will not be allowed to proceed before the Court of Justice unless it is demonstrated that they raise an issue that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. By way of consequence, an appeal brought against a decision of the General Court concerning a decision of an independent board of appeal of certain offices and agencies will not proceed unless the Court of Justice first decides that it should be allowed to do so. The concerned offices and agencies are:
- the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) (Alicante, Spain);
- the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) (Angers, France);
- the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) (Helsinki, Finland);
- the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) (Köln, Germany).
In those cases, any appeal must be accompanied by a request that the appeal be allowed to proceed, not exceeding 7 pages, in which the appellant sets out, clearly, the issue raised by the appeal that is significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law. If there is no such request, the appeal itself will be declared inadmissible.
If the request complies with the formal requirements prescribed, the Court of Justice will rule, as soon as possible and by reasoned order published on the Court’s website, on whether or not the appeal is to be allowed to proceed.
The order that the appeal should be allowed to proceed will be served, together with the appeal, on the parties to the relevant case before the General Court and will specify, where the appeal is to be allowed to proceed in part, the pleas in law or parts of the appeal to which the response must relate. The General Court and, if they were not parties to the proceedings before it, the Member States, the European Parliament, the Council of the EU and the European Commission will also be informed by the Registrar of the Court of Justice of the decision that the appeal should be allowed to proceed.
Please contact Pierre de Bandt or Raluca Gherghinaru for further information on these new rules and/or for general legal advice relating to EU litigation.