Summary
Parties
Grounds
Decision on costs
Operative part
Keywords
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Procedure ° Costs ° Dispute concerning recoverable costs ° Concept ° Application seeking to dispute an order to pay costs ° Inadmissibility
(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 92(1))
Summary
An application by which the applicant does not seek a decision from the Court of First Instance concerning a dispute between him and the defendant regarding the amount or the calculation of costs which he has been ordered to pay, but seeks to have that order varied in his favour or revoked, does not constitute a dispute concerning costs to be recovered. Such an application is, therefore, inadmissible.
Parties
In Joined Cases T-33/89 and T-74/89 DEP,
David Blackman, a member of the temporary staff of the European Parliament, residing at Tervuren (Belgium), represented by Aloyse May, of the Luxembourg Bar, with an address for service in Luxembourg at his Chambers, 31 Grand-Rue,
applicant,
v
European Parliament, represented by Jorge Campinos, Jurisconsult, Manfred Peter, Head of Division, and Didier Petersheim, of its Legal Service, acting as Agent, with an address for service in Luxembourg at the General Secretariat of the European Parliament,
defendant,
APPLICATION under Article 92 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance,
THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (Fourth Chamber),
composed of: C.W. Bellamy, President, H. Kirschner and C.P. Briët, Judges,
Registrar: H. Jung,
makes the following
Order
Grounds
1 By its judgment of 16 March 1993 in Joined Cases T-33/89 and T-74/89 Blackman v Parliament [1993] ECR II-249, the Court of First Instance ordered the applicant to pay the costs in connection with the examination of the witnesses.
2 By application lodged at the Registry of the Court of First Instance on 7 May 1993 and made pursuant to Article 92 of the Rules of procedure, the applicant claims that the Court should:
(1) declare the application formally admissible as being made within the period prescribed;
(2) declare admissible the challenge, based on Article 92 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, to the order, in the decision of 16 March 1993, that the applicant bear the costs incurred in connection with the examination of the witnesses;
(3) rule that the applicant shall not have to bear the aforementioned costs and that they will be left to the defendant to pay;
(4) alternatively, and as far as is necessary, rule that the costs in connection with the examination of the witnesses should be borne equally by the parties.
3 Irrespective of the question of the admissibility of the application, the Parliament confines itself to pointing out that it did not bring the proceedings settled by the judgment of the Court of First Instance of 16 March 1993 and leaves it to the Court to make an appropriate order on the application.
4 Under Article 92(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, if there is a dispute concerning the costs to be recovered, the Court of First Instance hearing the case is, on application by the party concerned and after hearing the opposite party, to make an order, from which no appeal is to lie.
5 It is therefore necessary to consider the question whether, in this case, there is a dispute concerning the costs to be recovered. The Court finds that the applicant is not seeking, by means of his application, a decision of the Court concerning a dispute between the Parliament and himself relating to the amount of the costs incurred in connection with the examination of the witnesses in Joined Cases T-33/89 and T-74/89 or to the calculation of those costs, but rather that he seeks to have the order that he bear the costs incurred in connection with the examination of the witnesses varied in his favour or revoked.
6 There is therefore, in this case, no question of a dispute regarding the costs to be recovered and the application must accordingly be dismissed as inadmissible.
Decision on costs
Costs
7 Pursuant to Article 87(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party' s pleadings. Since neither of the parties applied for costs, the parties must be ordered to pay their own costs.
Operative part
On those grounds,
THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fourth Chamber)
hereby orders:
1. The application is dismissed as inadmissible.
2. The parties shall bear their own costs.
Luxembourg, 15 July 1993.
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