Court System Deadlines

Court System Deadlines

Deadlines

Deadlines to lodge written pleadings (including, for instance, rules on the starting point of such deadlines), are governed by the TFEU, the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice, annexed to the TFEU, the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice and those of the General Court. Such deadlines are mandatory and any late application will be inadmissible. It is not the purpose of this module to describe those rules (whether an application is late or not is a question for the LS to assess), especially since the Commission is usually a defendant.

More about Court System Deadlines

The only situation where the Commission may initiate proceedings is an appeal before the Court of Justice against a General Court judgment. Such an appeal must be lodged within two months of the notification of the General Court judgment/order to the Commission (that date should be checked with the LS – it may be a few days after the date of the General Court judgment), plus ten days on account of distance 1 . Special rules apply when the deadline ends on an official public holiday or a week-end (deadline extended to the end of the first following working day). All in all, in practice, this means that an appeal must be lodged before the Court, on average, 2 _ months after the date of the judgment.

More about the Subject

Deadlines during the Court procedure are governed by the Statute of the Court of Justice, the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice and those of the General Court. Most of them are at the discretion of the Courts themselves (for instance: deadline for the Commission to lodge its defence or its rejoinder), which gives the possibility to the Commission (via the LS) to ask for extension. It must be noted however that, in order to speed up the Court process, the General Court has become more reluctant to grant extensions. Typically, the LS will have 2-3 months to draft and submit the Commission's defence and a little less for the rejoinder. DG Competition therefore needs to respond promptly to requests for assistance from the LS in litigation in order to allow time for DG Competition's contribution to be useful to the LS in drafting pleadings. In addition, some deadlines are fixed in the relevant rules and cannot be extended. This is the case before the Court of Justice in preliminary ruling cases (the deadline to lodge observations on the request of the national court is two months, running from the date of notification of the reference to the parties) 2 or in appeals against General Court judgments (the deadline to reply to such an appeal is two months and cannot be extended) 3 .

Other Considerations

The overall duration of a Court case varies depending on the nature of the legal action, the volume of the pleadings, the number of parties, etc. On average, one can say that, in relation to antitrust cases, preliminary ruling cases are decided within 18 to 30 months; actions for annulment/failure to act/damages are decided normally within 24 to 36 months and cartel cases generally take even more time (3 to 5 years).

Resources

See Also

References

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

Notes


[Note 1]
Article 81(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice and Article 102(2) of the Rules of procedure of the General Court.
[Note 2]
Article 23 of the Statute of the Court of Justice.
[Note 3]
Article 155 of the Court of Justice Rules of Procedure.

Further Reading

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

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