Notices for publication in the OJ nº T-868/19 of Tribunal General de la Unión Europea, February 14, 2020

• Resolution Date: February 14, 2020
• Issuing Organization: Tribunal General de la Unión Europea
• Decision Number: T-868/19

Action brought on 20 December 2019 - Nouryon Industrial Chemicals and Others v Commission

(Case T-868/19)

Language of the case: English

Parties

Applicants: Nouryon Industrial Chemicals BV (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Knoell NL BV (Maarssen, Netherlands), Grillo-Werke AG (Duisburg, Germany), PCC Trade & Services GmbH (Duisburg) (represented by: R. Cana, G. David, lawyers, and Z. Romata, Solicitor)

Defendant: European Commission

Form of order sought

The applicants claim that the Court should:

declare the application admissible and well-founded;

annul the contested decision in its entirety;

order the defendant to pay the costs of these proceedings; and

take such other or further measure as justice may require.

Pleas in law and main arguments

In their application, the applicants request the Court to annul Commission Implementing Decision of 16 October 2019 on the compliance check of a registration of dimethyl ether, referred by the European Chemicals Agency to the Commission pursuant to Article 51(7) of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals¹ .

In support of the action, the applicant relies on nine pleas in law.

First plea in law, alleging the defendant acted ultra vires, and infringed Article 51(7) of the REACH Regulation² by adopting the contested decision to cover aspects in relation to which the Member State Committee of the European Chemicals Agency (the “Agency”) had reached unanimous agreement, while Article 51(7) of REACH only allows the Commission to adopt a decision when the Agency Committee “fails to reach unanimous agreement”.

Second plea in law, alleging the defendant manifestly erred in its assessment, and breached Article 13(3) of the REACH Regulation because testing dimethyl ether (the “substance”) at the concentrations imposed by the contested decision is technically not possible and goes against the test methods prescribed by measures under Article 13(3) of the REACH Regulation.

Third plea in law, alleging the defendant manifestly erred in its assessment by requesting tests that will not generate relevant information on the substance.

Fourth plea in law, alleging the defendant manifestly erred in its assessment, and breached Column 2 of Section 8.7.3 of Annex X to the REACH Regulation by requesting the addition of cohorts 2A/2B to the extended one-generation reproductive toxicity study.

Fifth plea...