This Week in Luxembourg

The Grand Chamber (Judge Ilešič) slapped down the appeal by Laurent Gbagbo and his friends against the General Court’s order dismissing their action for annulment of their asset freeze as manifestly unfounded. The problem was that the applicants were out of time. The Court discussed the general theory of binding time limits before concluding that Gbagbo c.s. hadn’t argued anything specific to substantiate their appeal to force majeure. Gbagbo et al. v. Council

The Romanian gay rights NGO Accept decided to go for broke. They brought an employment discrimination case under Directive 2000/78 against Steaua Bucharest. If that wasn’t ambitious enough, the factual basis of the claim was an interview given by Gigi Becali, the main shareholder and “patron” of the club, which may or may not be enough to consider his statements as representing the club. All three answers of the court favour the applicant. Asociaţia ACCEPT v. Consiliul Naţional pentru Combaterea Discriminării Cf. Journal du Marché Intérieur Blog

In Jyske Bank Gibraltar v. Administración del Estado, Gibraltar banking secrecy clashed with Spanish and EU legislation to combat money laundering (specifically, Directive 2005/60) and the war on money laundering won.

Because Galileo is organised, under Regulation 876/2002 as a Joint Undertaking, i.e. an EU-level PPE, the EU’s staff regulations do not apply. Bark v. Galileo Joint Undertaking

(There was also a whole stack of boring and easy infringement cases.)

In the General Court, the baby seals won in the suit brought by the Canadian fur producers. The ban on seal products was lawfully enacted on the basis of art. 95 EC. The General Court rejected art. 133 EC as an additional legal basis by relying on the titanium dioxide case. The Court also spent some time on proportionality & subsidiarity, on art. 1 P1 and on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but to no avail. Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami v. Commission Cf. European Law Blog