Delayed EU Court Proceedings Can Give Rise To Claims For Damages

The time taken by the European judiciary1 to adjudicate on cases is of increasing concern. Failure by the General Court to conclude proceedings within a reasonable time triggers a right to compensation. In order to obtain damages, claimants need to make a fresh application before the General Court, separate from that seeking to annul or reduce the fines imposed by the Commission in antitrust cases. A number of damages actions for delayed EU Court proceedings were brought last year. It is now clear that the EU Courts will be held liable for their own delays. However, a number of questions remain unanswered, including the determination of the quantification of the damages.

Excessive Delays at the GC and the Right to a Fair Trial within a Reasonable Time

It is widely understood that the GC is overloaded and suffers from a significant backlog of cases, in particular as a result of the ever increasing number of appeals of EU decisions in complex competition cases.2While this inevitably means that the GC will take longer to process cases, an appellant still has a right to a fair trial within a reasonable time.

How Long is Too Long?

The CoJ has indicated that the reasonableness of the period for delivering judgment is to be determined on a case-by-case basis, assessing the individual facts and circumstances of each case. In making such an assessment, the CoJ takes account of a number of factors, such as the complexity of the dispute, the conduct of the parties, supervening procedural matters, etc.3 In the following recent cases, the CoJ found that the length of the proceedings before the GC could not be justified by any of the particular circumstances of the case:

Options Available for Corporations Affected by Excessive Delays in GC Proceedings

Corporations whose interests have been adversely affected by excessive delays in GC proceedings for the annulment of an antitrust decision have adopted one of two different approaches: (a) raising the issue before the GC itself in the annulment proceedings; or (b) appealing the GC's judgment before the CoJ, alleging procedural impropriety. The first option has been unsuccessful, with the GC expressing doubt as to whether an action for annulment constituted an appropriate framework for addressing and penalizing failures to determine the case in question within a reasonable time. Appropriately, the GC also held that the Chamber of the GC responsible for the case would not provide corporations with sufficient safeguards; notably guaranteed impartiality when assessing whether it, itself, committed a procedural irregularity in causing an unjustified delay.5 The second option has been more successful. Appellants have argued that excessive delays in GC proceedings amount to a procedural impropriety adversely affecting their rights and, as such, they have requested the CoJ to determine whether there has been a breach of the right to a fair trial within a reasonable time.6 Once a breach has been established, corporations can then seek redress.

Remedies for Unreasonable Delays in GC Proceedings – The CoJ...