Orders nº T-689/13 DEP of Tribunal General de la Unión Europea, September 25, 2019

• Resolution Date: September 25, 2019
• Issuing Organization: Tribunal General de la Unión Europea
• Decision Number: T-689/13 DEP

(Procedure - Taxation of costs)

In Case T-689/13 DEP,

Bilbaína de Alquitranes, SA, established in Luchana-Baracaldo, Biscay (Spain), and the other applicants whose names are listed in the Annex, represented by K. Van Maldegem, P. Sellar, M. Grunchard and S. Saez Moreno, lawyers,

applicants,

v

European Commission, represented by M. Wilderspin, R. Lindenthal and K. Talabér-Ritz, acting as Agents,

defendant,

APPLICATION for taxation of costs further to the judgment of 7 October 2015, Bilbaína de Alquitranes and Others v Commission (T-689/13, not published, EU:T:2015:767),

THE GENERAL COURT (Fifth Chamber),

composed of A. Dittrich (Rapporteur), acting as President, V. Tomljenović and J. Schwarcz, Judges,

Registrar: E. Coulon,

makes the following

Order

Facts, procedure and forms of order sought

1 By application lodged at the Court Registry on 20 December 2013 and registered under number T-689/13, the applicants brought an action for annulment in part of Commission Regulation (EU) No 944/2013 of 2 October 2013 amending, for the purposes of its adaptation to technical and scientific progress, Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (OJ 2013 L 261, p. 5). The applicants sought annulment of Regulation No 944/2013 in so far as it classified the substance pitch, coal tar, high-temperature (EC No 266-028-2, ‘CTPHT’), namely a black solid, composed primarily of a complex mixture of three or more membered condensed ring aromatic hydrocarbons, as an Aquatic Acute 1 (H400) and Aquatic Chronic 1 (H410) substance.

2 By judgment of 7 October 2015, Bilbaína de Alquitranes and Others v Commission (T-689/13, not published, EU:T:2015:767), the Court annulled in part Regulation No 944/2013 in so far as it classified CTPHT as an Aquatic Acute 1 (H400) and Aquatic Chronic 1 (H410) substance and ordered the Commission to bear its own costs and to pay those incurred by the applicants.

3 By its appeal, lodged at the Registry of the Court of Justice on 17 December 2015, the Commission requested the Court of Justice to set aside the judgment of the General Court of 7 October 2015. An application for interim measures made by the applicants seeking suspension of the effects of the partially annulled regulation was dismissed by order of the Vice-President of the Court of Justice of 7 July 2016, Commission v Bilbaína de Alquitranes and Others (C-691/15 P-R, not published, EU:C:2016:597). By judgment of 22 November 2017, Commission v Bilbaína de Alquitranes and Others (C-691/15 P, EU:C:2017:882), the Court of Justice dismissed the appeal brought against the judgment of the General Court of 7 October 2015, which therefore became final, and ordered the Commission to pay, in addition to its own costs, those incurred by the applicants, including those relating to the interlocutory proceedings that gave rise to the order of 7 July 2016.

4 By letters of 29 January 2018, the applicants requested the Commission to reimburse a total amount of EUR 227 900.35 in respect of their costs incurred in Cases T-689/13, C-691/15 P-R and C-691/15 P. After several exchanges of letters, the Commission proposed, by letter of 20 July 2018, to make a payment of EUR 84 500 in respect of all the costs and expenses relating to the proceedings before the General Court and the Court of Justice. The applicants declined that proposal by letter of 13 September 2018, while making a counter-offer amounting to EUR 160 000. On 15 November 2018 the Commission made a new proposal of EUR 100 000, which was also rejected by the applicants by letter of 19 December 2018. Consequently, the applicants and the Commission did not reach any agreement on the amount of recoverable costs.

5 By document lodged at the Court Registry on 20 June 2019, the applicants submitted the present application for taxation of costs in accordance with Article 170(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court.

6 The applicants claim that the Court should:

- fix the amount of recoverable costs in the case giving rise to the judgment of 7 October 2015, Bilbaína de Alquitranes and Others v Commission (T-689/13, not published, EU:T:2015:767) at EUR 104 356.56;

- fix the amount of recoverable costs relating to the present taxation of costs proceedings at EUR 20 000;

- apply to those amounts interest for late payment from the date of service of the order on the application for taxation of costs until the date of actual payment, at the rate applied by the European Central Bank to its principal refinancing operations in force on the first calendar day of the month in which the deadline for payment falls, increased by three and a half percentage points.

7 In its observations lodged at the Court Registry on 7 August 2019, the Commission contends that the Court should:

- dismiss the applicants’ application for taxation of costs; and

- fix the recoverable costs pursuant to Article 140(b) of the Rules of Procedure at EUR 30 000 or, in any event, at an amount lower than the sum offered by the Commission in its letter of 20 July 2018 or orally in the settlement negotiations.

Law

8 Under Article 170(3) of the Rules of Procedure, if there is a dispute concerning the costs to be recovered, the Court, on application by the party concerned and after hearing the observations of the opposite party, is to give its decision by way of an order from which no appeal lies.

9 According to Article 140(b) of the Rules of Procedure, expenses necessarily incurred by the parties for the purposes of the proceedings, in particular the travel and subsistence expenses and the remuneration of agents, advisers or lawyers, are regarded as recoverable costs. It follows from that provision that recoverable costs are limited, first, to those costs incurred for the purpose of the proceedings before the Court and, second, to those which were necessary for that purpose (order of 6 June 2019, European Dynamics Luxembourg and Others v ECHA, T-477/15 DEP, not published, EU:T:2019:419, paragraph 10).

10 With regard to lawyers’ fees, it should be borne in mind that, according to settled case-law, the Courts of the European Union are authorised not to tax the fees payable by the parties to their own lawyers, but to determine the amount up to which that remuneration may be recovered from the party ordered to pay the costs (order of 27 October 2017, Heli-Flight v EASA, T-102/13 DEP, not published, EU:T:2017:769, paragraph 19 and the case-law cited).

11 It is also settled case-law that, failing any provisions of EU law relating to fee scales or to the necessary working time, the Court is to make an unfettered assessment of the case, taking into account the purpose and nature of the proceedings, their significance from the point of view of EU law and also the difficulties presented by the case, the amount of work generated by the case for the agents or advisers involved and the economic interests that the parties had in the proceedings (order of 19 June 2018, Accorinti and Others v ECB, T-79/13 DEP, not published, EU:T:2018:365, paragraph 16 and the case-law cited).

12 In order to determine, on the basis of the criteria set out in paragraph 11 above, whether the costs actually incurred for the purposes of the proceedings were necessary, precise information must be supplied by the applicant. Whilst the absence of such information does not prevent the Court from fixing...