Court Procedure

Procedure

The procedure before the General Court and the Court of Justice is written and (possibly) oral.

Resources

See Also

References

• Information about Court Procedure in the Antitrust Manual of Procedures for the application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU (Internal DG Competition)

Further Reading

• Information about Court Procedure in EU Competition Procedure, 3rd. Edition, Edited by Luis Ortiz Blanco (Oxford University Press)

Procedure

The written procedure is particularly important in fact-intensive cases, as many antitrust cases are.

More about Court Procedure

In direct legal actions (action for annulment, damage claim, failure to act), the written procedure includes a number of successive written pleadings (“mémoires”): – Application (“requête”): starting point of the procedure, the application is the basis of the legal action; – Defence (“défense”): Commission's reply to the application (prepared and sent by the LS with the assistance of DG Competition) – Reply (“réplique”): applicant's reply to the Commission's arguments – Rejoinder (“duplique”): Commission's final reply to the applicant.

More about the Subject

It is to be noted however that the General Court and the Court of Justice try to limit the number of written pleadings (and therefore the volume and length of the procedure). For instance, in appeal cases before the Court of Justice, there is normally only one round of written pleadings (so no reply and no rejoinder, unless decided otherwise by the Court). Similarly, the General Court has created a “fast track procedure” for cases that justify urgent treatment (for DG Competition activities, this may be the case for mergers) 1 ; one feature of this expedited procedure is that there will normally be only one round of written pleadings.

Other Considerations

If a party intervenes in the case, it will lodge a statement in intervention (“mémoire en intervention”), to which the applicant and the defendant will usually be invited to comment on in writing.

More

In references for preliminary rulings, the starting point of the case (and accordingly of the written procedure) is the request of the national Court itself. All parties to the national court case are invited by the Court of Justice to submit written observations on the questions referred. In addition all EU institutions and Member States receive a copy of the request for preliminary ruling and have a right to submit written observations to the Court of Justice. The Commission always submits observations in references from national courts.

Resources

See Also

References

• Information about Court Procedure in the Antitrust Manual of Procedures for the application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU (Internal DG Competition)

Notes

[Note 1] Article 76a of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court.

Further Reading

• Information about Court Procedure in “An Introduction to EU Competition Law”, Moritz Lorenz (Cambridge University Press)