This Week In Luxembourg

In the war against excessive advertising, the Court dealt another blow. In Eleftheri tileorasi and Giannikos it held that " the provision of payment or of consideration of another kind is not a necessary condition for establishing the element of intent in surreptitious advertising" under Directive 89/552 as amended by Directive 97/36. The alleged surreptitious advertising consisted of a daytime television show talking about teeth whitening.

In Electrosteel v. Edil Centro, the parties can't agree on which court has jurisdiction to decide on the place of delivery. In other words, they can't agree on which court has jurisdiction to decide which court has jurisdiction under Regulation 44/2001. The Court sums up the usual factors, and concludes that if you really don't know, you're permitted to simply look at the place where the physical power over the goods in question was transferred.

In Ambrósio Lavrador and Olival Ferreira Bonifácio, the Court emphasises an important fact about the automobile insurance directives (Directives 72/166, 84/5 and 90/232.): they require that insurance coverage be available, but they do not govern the extent of the liability. That is a matter for MS law. Cf. also the recent case, also from Portugal, of Carvalho Ferreira Santos.

The Seventh Chamber gave some guidance on Directive 98/34 "laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations". The Belgian Decree on safety requirements does not qualify as a "technical regulation" under the directive. Intercommunale Intermosane and Fédération de l'industrie et du gaz v. Belgium

The Parliament lost an important Access to Documents case this week. In Toland v. Parliament, the General Court sided with the applicant against the Parliament's reliance on the exceptions of undermining audits and inspections and undermining the internal decision making process. The courts have been tougher on that latter exception for some time now, requiring evidence of specific problems. As for the former, the court found that the Parliament had failed to offer sufficient evidence to support its claim. Cf. EUObserver

The Council, in turn, again lost a freezing of funds case. Apparently, Mrs Nadiany Bamba, the editor of a pro-Gbagbo newspaper in Ivory Coast, was not given sufficient information about the Council's motivation for including her in the list of targets to allow her to adequately contest her inclusion. (Cf. Annex I, no. 6, of Regulation 25/2011.) Fortunately, the Council is given the opportunity to fix the problem, although they may not want to, given recent developments. Bamba v. Council (FR)

AG Jääskinen considered the Parliamentary immunity of Aldo Patriciello, who apparently lost his marbles in a hospital parking lot, and as a result stands accused of slandering a police officer. The Parliament decided to maintain his immunity, but that only matters if he has immunity in the first place. Which is why the ECJ now has to decide whether his rants to the police have a close enough nexus to his parliamentary work, this being the criterion for immunity in Italy. The AG thinks it does not. (DE, FR) There might still be a free speech issue, though. (But probably not.)

P.S. the archive of these emails is here.