EU Litigation
Companies operating in the EU can be confronted with complex issues of EU law such as free movement rules, EU anti-fraud law, State aid, product regulations, sanctions, and trade regulations. Overcoming these issues can involve complex interactions with EU institutions and the EU Courts.
Our EU litigation team is specialised in assisting clients in these complex interactions. They have dealt with over 100 cases before the EU Courts in Luxembourg and the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and regularly interact with EU institutions on a wide range of EU-law related topics.
Our specialised EU litigators support clients in different types of proceedings
- Proceedings before the EU Courts: the EU has two different courts and we represent clients such as governments and public and private companies in proceedings before both of them.
- The General Court ("GC") is the lower EU court and handles the majority of cases in first instance, such as
- direct actions for the annulment of decisions or regulatory acts of the EU institutions, bodies and agencies, e.g. Commission decisions on notifications of mergers, acquisitions or foreign subsidies, Commission decisions imposing cartel fines, Commission decisions on State aid measures or State aid complaints, Commission decisions on the award or recovery of EU subsidies, but also decisions and acts on the authorisation or prohibition of chemicals, biocidal products, medicines, food products and additives, etc.;
- interventions in direct actions on behalf of third parties, such as companies and non-governmental organisations;
- actions for damages based on the contractual or non-contractual liability of the EU institutions, bodies and agencies;
- direct actions for a failure to act by an EU institution, body, office or agency
- We support clients in direct actions for annulment of EU decisions on, Preliminary ruling proceedings before the ECJ: national courts can, and in some situations must, refer a question on the interpretation of EU law or on the validity of actions of EU institutions to the ECJ. We represent clients in preliminary ruling proceedings and provide guidance to local counsel during and in the preparation of
- Engaging with EU institutions: we support clients in informal discussions and engagements with EU institutions and agencies, for example the pre-notifcation discussions relating to a merger, acquisition, foreign subsidy or State aid measure, the applications for EU subsidies, product registrations or authorisations for amongst others chemicals, biocides, pesticides, novel foods and additives. . We also assist clients in providing input in public consultations, lodging complaints, responding to requests for information ,and exercising rights of defence in administrative and investigation proceedings.
- EU law expertise in national proceedings: national courts must ensure the correct application of EU law, including the interpretation of national law in accordance with EU law or the setting aside of national provisions that are incompatible with EU law. Our EU law specialists regularly assist litigators in national proceedings in challenging the compatibility of national law or decisions of national authorities with EU law.
- European Court of Human Rights: if in national proceedings the violation with the fundamental rights has been argued and the highest court has rejected the claims, an application can be made to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Third parties, such as non governmental organisations, can intervene in proceedings before the ECtHR. Our EU litigation team is well placed to represent clients in these proceedings.
