Agrégateur de flux

Commission / Belgique (Article 260, paragraphe 3, TFUE - Réseaux à haut débit)
Rapprochement des législations
La Cour interprète et applique pour la première fois l’article 260, paragraphe 3, TFUE, qui permet d’imposer une sanction financière pour le non-respect de l’« obligation de communiquer des mesures de transposition » d’une directive de l’Union

Dans cet arrêt, la chambre criminelle rappelle la règle selon laquelle les juridictions de jugement n’ont pas qualité pour annuler l’ordonnance de renvoi.

en lire plus

Après six heures de réquisitions prononcées par deux procureures, les peines maximales ont été requises contre Didier Lombard, Louis-Pierre Wenès et Olivier Barberot : un an d’emprisonnement et 15 000 € d’amende pour harcèlement moral au travail. Contre leurs complices Guy-Patrick Chérouvrier, Jacques Moulin, Brigitte Dumont et Nathalie Boulanger, huit mois d’emprisonnement et 10 000 € d’amende. Contre France Télécom : 75 000 € d’amende. La procureure a également demandé que le jugement soit publié.

en lire plus

QPC

I reviewed Kokott AG’s Opinion in C-624/17 OM v Tronex here. The Court yesterday essentially confirmed her Opinion – readers may want to have a quick read of my previous posting to get an idea of the issues.

The Court distinguishes between two main categories. First, redundant articles in the product range of the retailer, wholesaler or importer that were still in their unopened original packaging. The Court at 32: ‘it may be considered that those are new products that were presumably in working condition. Such electrical equipment can be considered to be market products amenable to normal trade and which, in principle, do not represent a burden for their holder.’ However (at 33) that does not mean that these can never be considered to be ‘discarded’: the final test of same needs to be done by the national court.

The second category are electrical appliances returned under the product guarantee. At 43: goods that have undergone a return transaction carried out in accordance with a contractual term and in return for the reimbursement of the purchase price cannot be regarded as having been discarded. Where a consumer effects such a return of non-compliant goods with a view to obtaining a reimbursement of them under the guarantee associated with the sale contract of those goods, that consumer cannot be regarded as having wished to carry out a disposal or recovery operation of goods he had been intending to ‘discard’ within the meaning of the Waste Framework Directive. Moreover per C-241/12 and C-242/12 Shell, the risk that the consumer will discard those goods in a way likely to harm the environment is low.

However such a return operation under the product guarantee does not provide certainty that the electrical appliances concerned will be reused. At 35: ‘It will therefore be necessary to verify, for the purposes of determining the risk of the holder discarding them in a way likely to harm the environment, whether the electrical appliances returned under the product guarantee, where they show defects, can still be sold without being repaired to be used for their original purpose and whether it is certain that they will be reused.’

At 36: if there is no certainty that the holder will actually have it repaired, it has to be considered a waste. At 40 ff:  In order to prove that malfunctioning appliances do not constitute waste, it is therefore for the holder of the products in question to demonstrate not only that they can be reused, but that their reuse is certain, and to ensure that the prior inspections or repairs necessary to that end have been done.

The Court ends at 42 with the clear imposition of a triple duty on the holder (who is not a consumer, per above): a duty of inspection,  and, where applicable, a duty of repair and of packaging.

Geert.

(Handbook of) EU Waste law, 2nd ed. 2015, Oxford, OUP, Chapter 1, 1.149 ff.