Avis juridique important

Order of the President of the Court of First Instance of 1 October 1997. - Comafrica SpA and Dole Fresh Fruit Europe Ltd & Co. v Commission of the European Communities. - Common organization of the markets - Bananas - Reduction coefficient - Suspension of operation - Interim measures - Admissibility of an application for interim measures - Serious and irreparable harm. - Case T-230/97 R. European Court reports 1997 Page II-01589

Summary

Applications for interim measures - Suspension of operation of a measure - Interim measures - Conditions for granting - Serious and irreparable damage - No such damage in the case of a banana importer seeking application of a reduction coefficient more favourable than that set by the contested regulation

(EC Treaty, Arts 185 and 186; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104(2))

Where an application for interim measures is made by importers of bananas from third countries seeking suspension, before the definitive reduction coefficient for the current marketing year is fixed and until judgment is given in the main action, of operation of Regulation No 1155/97, fixing the reduction coefficients for the determination of the quantity of bananas to be allocated to each operator in Categories A and B from the tariff quota for 1997, and issue of the number of import certificates to which the applicants claim to be entitled, the condition relating to urgency laid down in Article 104(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance is not fulfilled where the loss which the applicants claim they will wrongly have to suffer cannot be regarded as being such as to cause serious damage to undertakings of their size and where the alleged damage is reparable in so far as any reduction in imports would constitute an economic loss which could be made good by the means of redress provided for in the Treaty.

Upholding the applicants' claims would also encroach on the Commission's powers to establish the reduction coefficient and would entail the adoption of measures which would not be provisional but which would produce effects identical to those sought by the main application, since they would merely anticipate what would ensue from annulment of the contested regulation.