Orders nº T-212/16 DEP of Tribunal General de la Unión Europea, February 04, 2020

• Resolution Date: February 04, 2020
• Issuing Organization: Tribunal General de la Unión Europea
• Decision Number: T-212/16 DEP

(Procedure - Taxation of costs)

In Case T-212/16 DEP,

El Corte Inglés, SA, established in Madrid (Spain), represented by J.L. Rivas Zurdo, lawyer,

applicant,

v

European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO),

defendant,

the other party to the proceedings before the Board of Appeal of EUIPO, intervener before the General Court, being

Elho Business & Sport Vertriebs GmbH, established in Obergriesbach (Germany), represented by E. Warnke, lawyer,

APPLICATION for taxation of the costs to be reimbursed by the applicant to the intervener following the judgment of 5 December 2017, El Corte Inglés v EUIPO - Elho Business & Sport (FRee STyLe), (T-212/16, not published, EU:T:2017:869),

THE GENERAL COURT (Seventh Chamber),

composed of R. da Silva Passos, President, V. Valančius (Rapporteur) and I. Reine, Judges,

Registrar: E. Coulon,

makes the following

Order

1 By application lodged at the Court Registry on 9 May 2016, the applicant, El Corte Inglés, SA, brought an action for annulment of the decision of the First Board of Appeal of EUIPO of 12 February 2016 (Case R 377/2015-1), relating to invalidity proceedings between Elho Business & Sport and El Corte Inglés (‘the contested decision’).

2 The intervener, Elho Business & Sport Vertriebs GmbH, intervened in the proceedings in support of the form of order sought by EUIPO and claimed that the action should be dismissed and the applicant ordered to pay the costs.

3 By judgment of 5 December 2017, El Corte Inglés v EUIPO - Elho Business & Sport (FRee STyLe), (T-212/16, not published, EU:T:2017:869) (‘the judgment of the Court’), the Court dismissed the action and ordered the applicant to pay the costs on the basis of Article 134(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court.

4 By letter of 14 March 2018, the intervener requested the applicant to pay its recoverable costs in the present case which it calculated at EUR 5 962.50.

5 By email of 24 April 2018, the applicant proposed that, as part of a comprehensive settlement of the dispute, each party should bear its own costs.

6 By letter of 11 October 2018, the intervener again requested the applicant to pay the costs in full.

7 By email of 12 November 2018, the applicant proposed payment of the sum of EUR 2 950.

8 The applicant and the intervener did not reach any agreement on the total amount of recoverable costs.

9 By document lodged at the Court Registry on 4 September 2019, the intervener made an application for taxation of costs on the basis of Article 170(1) of the Rules of Procedure, in which it claimed that the Court should order the applicant to pay, by way of costs, the sum of EUR 5 962.50 plus default interest on the principal sum from the date of notification of the order for taxation of costs until the date of payment.

10 The applicant’s observations on that application were received at the Court Registry outside the time limit set for that purpose. On the basis of Article 62 of the Rules of Procedure, those observations were excluded from the proceedings and the written part of the procedure was closed.

Law

The costs incurred for the purposes of the proceedings before the General Court

11 Under Article 170(1) to (3) of the Rules of Procedure, where there is a dispute concerning the costs to be recovered, the Court is, on application by the party concerned, to give its decision by way of an order from which no appeal is to lie, after giving the party concerned an opportunity to submit its observations.

12 According to Article 140(b) of the Rules of Procedure, the 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 incurred for the purpose of the proceedings before the Court and, second, to those which were necessary for...