List of European Court of Justice rulings

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v t e

The following is a list of notable judgments of the European Court of Justice.

Principles of Union Law

Direct effect

Treaties, Regulations and Decisions

• Van Gend en Loos
  26/62 [1963] ECR 1

"The [European Economic] Community constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the [Member] States have limited their sovereign rights".

"The Court ... has the jurisdiction to answer ... questions referred that ... relate to the interpretation of the treaty."

• Franz Grad 9/70 [1970] ECR-825
• Commission v Italy 39/72 [1973] ECR 101
• Reyners 2/74 [1974] ECR 631
• Defrenne II [1976] ECR 455
• Amsterdam Bulb 50/76 [1977] ECR 137

States can provide in national legislation for appropriate sanctions which are not provided for in the regulation, and can continue to regulate various related issues which are not covered in the regulation

• Zaera 126/86 [1987] ECR 3697
• Azienda Agricola C-403/98 [2001] ECR I-103
• Steinberg T-17/10 [2012] 625
• Sharif University T-181/13 [2014] 607

Directives

• Van Duyn v Home Office 41/74 [1974] ECR 1337
• Ratti 148/78 [1979] ECR 1629

Member States are precluded by their failure to implement a directive properly from refusing to recognise its binding effect in cases where it is pleaded against them, thus they cannot rely on their failure to implement the directive in time.

• Becker 8/81 [1982] ECR 53
• von Colson 14/83 [1984] ECR 1891
• Kolpinghuis Nijmegen 80/86 [1987] ECR 3969

There is no obligation of harmonious interpretation where the national measure, interpreted in the light of the directive, would impose

• Fratelli Costanzo 103/88 [1989] ECR 1839
• Foster C-188/89 [1990] ECR I-3313
• Marshall v Southampton and South-West Hampshire Area Health Authority Case 152/84 [1986] ECR I-4367^[1]
• Faccini Dori C-91/92 [1994] ECR I-3325
• CIA Security C-194/94 [1996] ECR I-2201
• Arcaro C-168/95 [1996] ECR I-4705

Notwithstanding the Kolpinghuis ruling, the creation of any other kind of legal disadvantage of detriment, save for criminal liability, is very well possible.

• Unilever Italia C-443/98 [2000] ECR I-7535
• Commission v Spain, case C-417/99, 13 September 2001: failure to designate the
  air quality.^[2] Directives are to be transposed into national law "with precision, clarity and transparency".^[3]

• Simmenthal II 106/77 [1978] ECR 629

Duty to set aside provisions of national law which are incompatible with Community law. The Court ruled that:

A national court which is called upon, within the limits of its jurisdiction, to apply provisions of Community law is under a duty to give full effect to those provisions, if necessary refusing of its own motion to apply any conflicting provision of national legislation, even if adopted subsequently, and it is not necessary for the court to request or await the prior setting aside of such provisions by legislative or other constitutional means.^[4]

• Marleasing C-106/89 ECR I-7321

National law must be interpreted and applied, insofar as possible, so as to avoid a conflict with a Community rule.

• Factortame
  I C-213/89 [1990] ECR I-2433

Duty on national courts to secure the full effectiveness of Community law, even where it is necessary to create a national remedy where none had previously existed.

Enforcement of EU law

EU law has not established its own system for its enforcement or for aggrieved parties to seek remedies for breach of EU law.^[5] In the absence of such a system,

It is clear from the case-law that ... it is for the domestic legal system of each Member State to designate the courts and tribunals having jurisdiction and to lay down the detailed procedural rules governing actions for safeguarding rights which individuals derive from Community law, provided, first, that such rules are not less favourable than those governing similar domestic actions (principle of equivalence) and, secondly, that they do not render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law (principle of effectiveness) (Joined Cases C-430/93 and C-431/93 Van Schijn]]del and van Veen [1995] ECR I-4705, paragraph 17, and Case C-129/00 Commission v Italy [2003] ECR I-14637, paragraph 25).^[6]

• Joined Cases C-430/93 and C-431/93 Van Schijndel and van Veen introduced the principles of equivalence and effectiveness
• Joined Cases C-222/05 to C-225/05, van der Weerd et al, a series of Dutch cases involving the
  of its own motion a plea alleging infringement of the provisions of Community legislation, since neither the principle of equivalence nor the principle of effectiveness require it to do so.^[6]

• Commission v. Luxembourg and Belgium, joined cases 90 and 91/63 [1964] ECR 625

"[I]n [the defendants'] view, … international law allows a party, injured by the failure of another party to perform its obligations, to withhold performance of its own … However, this relationship between the obligations of parties cannot be recognized under Community law ... The treaty is not limited to creating reciprocal obligations ... but establishes a new legal order ... [T]he basic concept of the treaty requires that the Member States not take the law into their own hands."^[7]

Fundamental rights

• Stauder 29/69 [1969] ECR 419

"Fundamental rights [are] enshrined in the general principles of Community law and protected by the Court."

• Internationale Handelsgesellschaft
  11/70 [1970] ECR 1125

Fundamental rights are an integral part of the general principles of law the observance of which the Court ensures.

• Nold 4/73 [1974] ECR 491, §13

When protecting fundamental rights, "the Court is bound to draw inspiration from constitutional traditions common to the Member States, and it cannot therefore uphold measures which are incompatible with fundamental rights recognised and protected by the Constitutions of those States." The Court can also draw on international human rights treaties to which Member States have collaborated or are signatories.

• Carpenter C-60/00 [2002] ECR I-6279

Fundamental rights affect the scope and application of Community law. In Carpenter, the Court weaved principles of respect for family and private life from Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights into its analysis of the rights of Union citizens. It concluded that the right of a minor child to reside in a Member State under Community law brought with it a corollary right for his mother to reside there as well.

• Test Achats vs Council of Ministers

The legislative organs of the union cannot make laws which allow private sector organisations to discriminate on the grounds of gender even if such discrimination is based on relevant and accurate actuarial and statistical data.

• Minister voor Immigratie en Asiel C-199/12 [2013] 720

Law of the institutions

Acts

• Mandelli 3/67 [1968] ECR 25

Acts of the European institutions must be supported by sufficient reasoning, the validity of which shall be examined by the Court.

Legislative process

• Variola 34/73 [1973] ECR 981
• Roquette Frères v Council 138/79 [1980] ECR 3333
• Germany v Commission 24/62 [1963] ECR 131
• Tariff Preferences case 45/86 [1987] ECR 1493
• Beus 5/67 [1968] ECR 83
• Tobacco Advertising case C-376/98 [2000] ECR I-8419
• Opinion 2/94 [1996] ECR I-1759

The European Community does not have the power under the treaties to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights.

• Parliament v Council C-65/93 [1995] ECR I-643

Liability

• Plaumann v Commission 25/62 [1963] ECR 199

The Plaumann test sets out the criteria for non-privileged applicants to prove individual concern: 'Applicants must show that the decision affects them by reason of certain attributes which are peculiar to them or by reason of circumstances in which they are differentiated from all other persons and by virtue of these factors distinguishes them individually just as in the case of the person addressed.'

• Codorníu v Council C-309/89 [1994] ECR I-1853

In this case the court took a more liberal approach than the restrictive Plaumann test for establishing individual concern, which was, however, not followed in judgements thereafter.

Interim orders

Article 186 of the Treaty of Rome stated that the Court "may, in any cases referred to it, make any necessary interim order".^[8] Article 39 of the Treaty of Nice's Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice (2001) states that "the President of the Court may, by way of summary procedure ... prescribe interim measures in pursuance of Article 243 of the EC Treaty or Article 158 of the EAEC Treaty".^[9]

In Commission of the European Communities v Kingdom of Belgium (1994), the president dismissed an application for interim measures submitted by the commission on 11 March 1994 because the commission had "not displayed the diligence to be expected". The commission had been aware of an alleged breach of the procurement directives in October 1993, and had referred on 8 February 1994 to its "intention" to seek the suspension of a public supplies contract, but did not apply for an interim order until 11 March 1994.^[10]

Competition

• Case C-185/95: Baustahlgewebe v. Commission. In 1989 the
  Court of First Instance did not rule on the case until 6 April 1995, five years and six months later. The Court of Justice held that the case had not been determined within a reasonable time and reduced the ECU 3 million fine by ECU 50,000 (a reduction of 1.67%).^[12]
• Case C-231/03: Coname v Comune di Cingia de' Botti in Italy (competition and free movement of persons).^[13] The court established that transparency obligations apply to the award of a concession for the management of the public gas distribution service.^[14]
• Case C-501/06 P: GlaxoSmithKline Services and Others v Commission and Others, joined with cases C-513/06 P, C-515/06 P and C‑519/06 P: four appeals brought under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, 2006, regarding Article 81 of the Treaty of Rome.^[15]
• Prezes Urzędu Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów v Tele2 Polska sp. z o.o. (now
  Telekomunikacja Polska SA was not abusing a dominant position on the market. The ECJ ruled that only the European Commission has competence to make such a decision.^[16]
• Simba Toys T-450/09 [2014] 983
• C-68/12 - Slovenská sporiteľňa et al. - three banks colluded against a non-banking financial institution which was alleged to be operating illegally in the Slovak Republic. The court ruled that the allegation of illegal operation was irrelevant to determining whether the banks' collusion interfered with the structure of the market and in particular with the interests of competition itself.^[17]
• C-230/16 - Coty Germany GmbH v Parfümerie Akzente GmbH - a supplier of luxury goods is able to prevent its
  authorised distributors from selling them on a third-party internet platform.^[18]
• Judgments were issued collectively on 1 February 2018 in four cases concerning anti-competitive behaviour and concerted practices in the international
  forwarding services market:^[19]
  • Case C-261/16: P Kuhne + Nagel International and others v European Commission, regarding a cartel agreeing surcharges on export declarations, referred to as the "new export system" cartel
  • Case C-263/16: P Schenker v Commission
  • Case C-264/16: P Deutsche Bahn and others v Commission
  • Case C-271/16: P Panalpina World Transport (Holding) and others v Commission

The last three cartels referred to above were those known as the "advanced manifest system" cartel, the "peak season surcharge" cartel and the "currency adjustment factor" cartel.^[20]

Consumer protection

Three cases which impact on the national courts' approach to considering fairness in consumer contracts are:

• Case C-168/05 Mostaza Claro ECR I-10421 - this ruling requires national courts to assess of their
  own motion
  whether a contractual term is unfair, due to "the nature and importance of the public interest underlying the protection which [the directive under consideration] confers on consumers".
• Case C-243/08 Pannon ECR I-4713 - the courts would only have to look at the fairness of the term if they had adequate information enabling them to do so.
• Case C-137/08 VB Penzugyi v Schneider - the courts would only have to look at the term or terms in question, not the entire contract.^[21]

Data protection

• Case C-362/14 –
  High Court of Ireland made on 25 July 2014, published 6 October 2015.^[22]

• Case C-186/83: Arie Botzen and others v
  TUPE directive.^[23]
• Case C-24/85, Spijkers v Gebroeders Benedik Abattoir CV

External relations

• Commission v Council relating to the European Road Transport Agreement (ERTA), [1971] ECR 263

External trade

• Portugal v Council, case C-149/96: application made by the
  Community legislation.^[25] In this respect, the Court ruled that the 1993 resolution had no binding effect and that in any case, "the decision appears to be clear in every aspect".^[24]
  ^{: paragraphs 55–57}

• Case C-408/01 Adidas-Salomon AG and Adidas Benelux v. Fitnessworld Trading Ltd. - reference for a preliminary ruling from the
  trade marks with a reputation.^[26]
• Case C-252/07 Intel Corporation v. CPM United Kingdom Ltd. - the court interpreted the meaning of Article 4 (4)(a) of the Trade Marks Directive.
• Joined cases C-446/09 and C-495/09 concerned the interpretation of EU legislation governing action by customs authorities against possible infringements of
  intellectual property rights when suspected goods were within the EU for "external transit" purposes.^[27]
• In
  copyright protection does not extend to software functionality, the programming language
  used, or the format of the data files used by a software program.

The Product Liability Directive aims to ensure undistorted competition between economic operators, to facilitate the free movement of goods and to avoid differences in levels of consumer protection.^[29]

• Case-495/10 - Centre hospitalier universitaire de Besançon v Thomas Dutrueux, Caisse primaire d'assurance maladie du Jura, 21 December 2011: The directive is not intended "exhaustively to harmonise the sphere of liability for defective products beyond its own area of application", which concerns producer and importer liability for defective products. A French healthcare law which also imposes a form of no-fault liability on public hospitals is therefore not incompatible with the directive.^[29]

Free movement of persons

Workers

• Hoekstra 75/63 [1964] ECR 347
• Sotgiu 152/73 [1974] ECR 153
• Van Duyn
  41/74 [1974] ECR 1337
• Levin 53/81 [1982] ECR 1035
• Lawrie-Blum 66/85 [1986] ECR 2121
• Union nationale des entraîneurs et cadres techniques professionnels du football (Unectef) v Georges Heylens and others, C-222/86, judgment dated 15 October 1987, ruled that it must be possible for a worker to challenge a refusal to recognise the equivalence of a diploma. George Heylens in this case was a Belgian footballer. French rules at the time required a foorball trainer working in France to have a French qualification.^[30]
• Bettray 344/87 [1989] ECR 1621
• Groener C-379/87 [1989] ECR 3967
• Antonissen C-292/89 [1991] ECR I-745
• Bosman C-415/93[1995] ECR I-4921
• Angonese C-281/98 [2000] ECR I-4139
• Trojani C-456/02 [2004] ECR I-07573

Citizenship

• Grzelczyk C-184/99 [2001] ECR I-6193
• Garcia Avello C-148/02 [2003] ECR I-11613
• Collins C-138/02 [2004] ECR I-2703
• Zhu and Chen
  C-200/02 [2004] ECR I-9925
• Metock and Others
  C-127/08 [2008] ECR I-6241
• Libert et al v Gouvernement flamand (Flemish Government), Case C-197/11, found that a decree of the Flemish Region dated 27 March 2009 on land and real estate, which restricted transfer of certain land to persons with a "sufficient connection" with the local community, breached the Citizens' Rights Directive, 2004/38/EC. The case was joined with case C-203/11.^[31]

Freedom of establishment and to provide services

Establishment

• Reyners 2/74 [1974] ECR 631
• Thieffry 71/76 [1977] ECR 765
• Factortame II C-221/89 [1991] ECR I-3905
• Vlassopoulou 340/89 [1991] ECR 2357
• Centros C-212/97 [1999] ECR I-1459
• Überseering C-208/00 [2002] ECR I-9919
• Joined cases C-186/11 and C-209/11 Stanleybet et al. v. Organismos prognostikon agonon podosfairou AE (OPAP) regarding OPAP's monopoly betting licence under Greek national law.^[32]

• van Binsbergen 33/74 [1974] ECR 1299
• Cowan 186/87 [1989] ECR 195
• Rush Portuguesa C-113/89 [1990] ECR I-1417
• Gebhard C-55/94 [1995] ECR I-4165
• Bosman C-415/93[1995] ECR I-4921
• Case C-393/05, Commission v Austria, concerning the Austrian requirement that every inspection body in the field of organic agriculture with a registered office outside Austria must also maintain an office inside Austria. The Court held that this requirement was a disproportionate restriction on freedom to provide services.^[33]
• Case C-434/15, Asociación Profesional Elite Taxi v Uber Systems Spain SL: the service provided by Uber connecting individuals with vehicle drivers is to be classified as a service in the field of transport.^[34]

Non-application of single market principles

• Case C-108/98 - RI.SAN. v Comune di Ischia, Italia Lavoro SpA, formerly GEPI SpA and Ischia Ambiente SpA: the treaty principles relating to freedom of movement, freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services were not engaged by the facts of the case, because the facts were "confined to a single Member State". RI.SAN. Srl had challenged the decision of the comune to appoint a mixed-capital limited company to provide its waste management services, but as RI.SAN. was an Italian organisation it was not relying on the freedoms to operate across Member State boundaries which were provided for by the EC Treaty.^[35]

Investment

• Case C-284/16 - Slowakische Republik v Achmea BV: in 2018, the court ruled that the arbitration clause in the 1991 agreement between The Netherlands and Slovakia (formerly the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic) on the protection of investments was "not compatible with EU law".^[36]

Jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments

• Allianz SpA v West Tankers, case C-185/07, concerned
  Regulation 44/2001 on the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Anti-suit injunctions restraining a party from commencing or continuing processes in the court of a Brussels Regulation member state cannot be granted in the court of another member state because this would be incompatible with the regulation: see Allianz SpA v West Tankers
• Marco Gambazzi v DaimlerChrysler Canada Inc. and CIBC Mellon Trust Company, case C–394/07, concerned implementation of the public policy clause of the
  Brussels Convention (now the Brussels I Regulation). In this case, the court ruled that the Italian courts (and potentially other courts of member states) could decline to enforce a default judgment entered against Mr Gambazzi in the UK courts if, following a "comprehensive assessment of the proceedings", the court considered that the default judgment in the absence of the defendant "constituted a manifest and disproportionate infringement of [his] right to be heard".^[37]
• Car Trim GmbH v KeySafety Systems SrL (case C-381/08) and Electrosteel Europe sa v Edil Centro SpA, (case C-87/10): two linked cases regarding the place of "performance" of a contractual obligation, which may be used to determine the national court with jurisdiction in a civil or commercial matter. This will in general be the place of delivery in relation to a contract for the sale of goods. These cases looked at situations where goods were made available for delivery to a purchaser in another member state. The terms of the contract should first be considered to determine where "delivery" is to take place, but if this is not possible (not knowing which member state's substantive
  contract law is to apply), the place where goods are physically handed over to the purchaser or their agent will determine the place of performance.^[38]
• Pammer v. Karl Schlütter GmbH & Co. KG (case C-585/08) and Hotel Alpenhof v. Mr. Heller (case C-144/09), 2010: see Pammer and Alpenhof cases

Procurement

Procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors

• Case C-513/99 - Concordia Bus Finland Oy Ab, formerly Stagecoach Finland Oy Ab v Helsingin kaupunki and HKL-Bussiliikenne, also a
  Concordia Bus Finland challenged the inclusion of environmental factors in the evaluation criteria.^[39] One of the objections of Concordia Bus was that the criteria were discriminatory because the Community’s own bus company HKL was the only company with gas-powered vehicles that could comply with the emission levels set. The court ruled that the fact that one of a set of various award criteria imposed by the contracting authority could only be met by a small number of companies did not in itself make this discriminatory.^[40]
• Case C-394-02: Commission of the European Communities v Hellenic Republic. Circumstances following an environmental impact assessment with a deadline for implementation did not qualify as "extreme urgency" for the purposes of justifying a negotiated contract being agreed without advertising an opportunity for other companies to express interest.^[41] See Public Power Corporation#Legal issues.
• Case C-206/08: Wasser- und Abwasserzweckverband Gotha und Landkreisgemeinden (WAZV Gotha) v Eurawasser Aufbereitungs- und Entsorgungsgesellschaft mbH. Ruled in relation to a contract for the supply of services, that "the fact that the supplier does not receive consideration directly from the contracting authority, but is entitled to collect payment under private law from third parties, is sufficient for the contract in question to be categorised as a 'service concession' within the meaning of Article 1(3)(b) of Directive 2004/17/EC of the European Parliament and of the council of 31 March 2004".^[42]

Public procurement

• Case 31/87 Gebroeders Beentjes BV v State of the Netherlands on the interpretation of Council
  Directive 71/305/EEC of 26 July 1971 concerning the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts: a "social consideration" such as a condition relating to the employment of long-term unemployed persons is compatible with the public works directive if it has no direct or indirect discriminatory effect on tenderers from other Member States of the Community.^[43] In his opinion as an Advocate-General in this case, Marco Darmon [de] also advised that the distinction between checking a tenderer's suitability for a specific contract and the contract award decision based on the bid evaluation criteria does not require these two steps to be assessed in sequence, and where an awarding authority "belatedly" becomes aware of a tenderer's unsuitability, it should be able to rely on that information "up to the last moment".^[44]
• Case C-243/89 Commission v Denmark - construction contract for the
  Storebaelt bridge: a condition requiring use of local labour and local materials was held to be incompatible with treaty principles.^[45]
• Case C-107/92 Commission v Italian Republic – an urgent need had arisen to construct an
  Official Journal of the European Communities on the grounds of urgency, but the European Commission argued, and the Court agreed, that there was sufficient time to advertise the works opportunity under the accelerated procedure as defined in section 15 of the Directive on Public Works Contracts (Directive 71/305/EEC).^[46]
• Case C-331/92 Gestión Hotelera Internacional SA v Comunidad Autónoma de Canarias, Ayuntamiento de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Gran Casino de Las Palmas SA: the contract in question covered the assignment of publicly-owned land to a casino concession with incidental works to be undertaken in order to operate the casino. The court held that, because the works were "merely incidental" to the concession, the provisions of Directive 71/305 did not apply to the contract award procedure.^[47]
• Case C-97/94 Commission v Belgium: contracting authorities have "a degree of choice" as to which
  Walloon region had been issued using the "Open Procedure", the "negotiated procedure" could have been used instead. The court stated that subsequently changing the procedure in order to negotiate (or accept further post-tender information) was not permitted.^[48]
• Case C-225/98 Commission v French Republic – ruled that the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region and the Département du Nord had failed to fulfil their legal obligations through the use of employment criteria in the technical specification used when contracting for the construction and maintenance of school buildings. However, the court ruled that where a contracting authority had to assess two or more economically equivalent bids, they could adopt employment opportunities as an "accessory" or "additional" criterion, as long as the use of this criterion was not discriminatory.^[49]
• Case C-237/99 Commission v French Republic – ruled that the French public housing institutions, offices publics d'aménagement et de construction (OPAC, public development and construction entities) and societes anonymes habitations à loyer modéré (SA HTMs, low-rent housing corporations) met the criteria in the then-applicable public works contracts directive (Council Directive 93/37/EEC) for being treated as a "body governed by public law" according to article 1(b) of the directive:

• a body established for the specific purpose of meeting needs in the general interest, not having an industrial or commercial character,
• having legal personality, and

[either]

• financed, for the most part, by the State, or regional or local authorities, or other bodies governed by public law, or
• subject to management supervision by those bodies, or
• having an administrative, managerial or supervisory board, more than half of whose members are appointed by the State, regional or local authorities or by other bodies governed by public law.
  Official Journal of the European Communities.^[51]

• Case C-19/00 SIAC Construction Ltd. v The County Council of the County of Mayo - the court ruled on the interpretation of Article 29 of Council Directive 71/305/EEC of 26 July 1971: see SIAC Construction Ltd v The County Council of the County of Mayo#Court of Justice of the European Union
• Case C-488/01 Wienstrom case: the court ruled that in a tender for energy supply, a criterion relating solely to the amount of
  Land of Carinthia.^[52]
• Case C-211/02
  Court of First Instance held that a clarification should have been sought instead of the tender being rejected, giving rise to a proposition on the circumstances where a clarification should be sought, subsequently referred to as the "Tideland principles".^[53][54]
• Joined cases C-226/04 and C-228/04: whether companies bidding for public service contracts who have failed to pay tax or
  social security contributions on time but have subsequently regularised their position may be included within a procurement procedure, where national harmonising legislation makes provision for such companies not to be considered.^[55]
• Case C-444/06 Commission v Spain: the Spanish public procurement rules did not adequately transpose the requirements of Council Directive 89/665/EEC on the coordination of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the application of review procedures to the award of public supply and public works contracts, as amended by Council Directive 92/50/EEC of 18 June 1992. However, in regard to some provisions in Spanish law intended to preserve the effects of a contract subject to an administrative declaration of invalidity and to maintain continuity of public service provision, the Court found that the commission had not demonstrated that the legislation undermined the requirements of the review directive.[56]
• Case C‑450/06 Varec SA v Belgian State, 14 February 2008: a review body must ensure that confidentiality and business secrecy are respected. The review body itself is responsible for determining how this can best be done whilst also providing effective legal protection and respecting the rights of the parties to the dispute under review to conduct their defence.^[57]
• Case C-454/06 pressetext Nachrichtenagentur GmbH v Republic of Austria, on amendments to the Austrian government's contract with the Austria Press Agency (APA), and the question of material amendments to a contract.^[58]
• Case C-532/06 Emm G Lianakis AE and others v Dimos Alexandrouplis and others, states that the "selection" and "award" stages of a procurement process are distinct processes with different purposes and should not be fused into one. The case establishes that a supplier's "experience" may be used as a selection criterion but cannot function as a evaluation criterion at the "award" stage.^[59]
• Case T-258/06 Commission v Germany, a case in the
  General Court of the European Union: Germany unsuccessfully challenged the lawfulness of the Commission's Interpretative Communication on the Community law applicable to contract awards not or not fully subject to the provisions of the Public Procurement Directives, published in August 2006.^[60]
• Case C‑538/07 Assitur Srl v Camera di Commercio, Industria, Artigianato e Agricoltura di Milano: addressed a referral from the Italian Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale per la Lombardia for advice on whether the list of criteria in the (old) procurement directive 92/50/EEC for excluding tenderers from a procurement process was to be treated as exhaustive. The ruling confirmed that in itself the list was not exhaustive, but parallel Italian legislation according to which "undertakings linked by a relationship of control or affiliated to one another" were not permitted to take part simultaneously in the same procurement procedure" was unlawful unless the businesses involved were given "an opportunity to demonstrate that [their] relationship did not influence their conduct in the course of that tendering procedure".^[61]
• Case C-406/08, Uniplex (UK) Ltd. v NHS Business Services Authority: reviewed the provision in the UK's Public Contracts Regulations obliging an unsuccessful tenderer to submit a challenge to the contracting authority's decision "promptly, and in any event within three months". The court concluded that this national provision was contrary to EU law because this form of wording prevented claimants from knowing the exact time limit which would apply.^[62]
• Case C-456/08 Commission v Ireland: Order 84A of the Rules of the
  Irish Government on 8 September 2010 which is now consistent with EU law. This requires that actions be brought within 30 calendar days of when the claimant "knew or ought to have known" of the alleged infringement".^[64]
• Case C-599/10 SAG ELV Slovensko a.s. and others v Úrad pre verejné obstarávanie, referral from the Najvyšší súd Slovenskej republiky (Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic). In a case where a tender is imprecise or does not meet the technical requirements of the specification, there is no obligation to consult the tenderer or to ask for a clarification, and to do so would conflict with the principle of equal treatment of tenderers. There is a duty to request clarification of an abnormally low price and in this case the contracting authority "must set out clearly its request for clarification".^[65]
• Case C-182/11 Econord SpA v Comune di Cagno et al., 29 November 2012: control "similar to the control which [a local authority] exercises over its own departments" is maintained where the authority holds capital in a public entity and also plays "a role in its managing bodies".^[66] Joined case with case C-183/11.^[66]
• Case 94/12 Swm Contruzioni 2 SpA and Mannochi Luigino DI v. Provincia di Fermo ruled that Italian public works contracting rules which prevented a tenderer from relying on the capacities of more than one other business in each category covered by the business qualification system was inconsistent with the rules in the public procurement directive of 2004 allowing "entities" (plural), as a general rule, to be engaged in supporting the delivery of a contract or evidencing that the necessary capacity was available to the tendering organisation.^[67]
• Case C-552/13 Grupo Hospitalario Quirón SA v Departamento de Sanidad del
  Gobierno Vasco and Instituto de Religiosas Siervas de Jesús de la Caridad, confirmed that the 2004 Directive on Public Procurement did not permit a tender for medical services to state as a requirement that the proposed services must be provided within the boundaries of a particular locality, in this case the municipality of Bilbao.^[68] A more general proximity requirement in the specification, more easily justifiable, was not criticised by the court.^[69]
• Case T-4/13 - Communicaid Group Ltd. v European Commission, another EU General Court case. Communicaid, a London-based language-training company challenged a procurement award decision made by the Commission and requested that the proposed contract award be suspended. The challenge was dismissed as Communicaid had failed to establish why urgent measures were required.[70]
• Case C-413/17 – Roche Lietuva, related to the detailed formulation of technical specifications.^[71]