Summary
Parties
Grounds
Operative part
Keywords
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1. Procedure ° Costs ° Taxation ° Factors to be taken into consideration
(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 91(b))
2. Procedure ° Costs ° Taxation ° Recoverable costs ° Concept ° Fees owed to an official' s lawyer for services rendered at the pre-litigation stage of the procedure ° Excluded
(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 91(b))
Summary
1. The Community judicature is not empowered to tax the fees payable by the parties to their own lawyers but it may determine the amount of those fees which may be recovered from the party ordered to pay the costs. It is, therefore, not obliged to take account of any national scales of lawyers' fees or any agreement in relation to fees.
Since Community law does not contain any provisions laying down a scale of fees, the Court must consider all the facts of the case, taking into account the purpose and nature of the proceedings, their significance from the point of view of Community law, as well as the difficulties presented by the case, the amount of work generated by the dispute for the lawyer involved and the financial interest which the parties had in the proceedings.
2. Even if, in a dispute between an official and his institution, the course of the pre-litigation procedure may sometimes render it appropriate for a lawyer to be employed, the fees due for the services provided at that stage, which necessarily serve to reduce accordingly the lawyer' s volume of work during the litigation stage, do not constitute recoverable costs.
Parties
In Case T-84/91 DEP,
Mireille Meskens, an official of the European Parliament, residing in Brussels, represented by Jean-Noël Louis, of the Brussels Bar, with an address for service in Luxembourg at the office of Fiduciaire Myson SARL, 1 Rue Glesener,
applicant,
supported by
European Public Service Union, Brussels, whose seat is in Brussels, represented by Gérard Collin, of the Brussels Bar, and at the hearing by Véronique Leclerc, of the Brussels Bar, with an address for service in Luxembourg at the office of Fiduciaire Myson SARL, 1 Rue Glesener,
intervener,
v
European Parliament, represented by Jorge Campinos, Jurisconsult, and by Manfred Peter, Head of Division, acting as Agents, with an address for service in Luxembourg at the Secretariat of the European Parliament, Kirchberg,
defendant,
APPLICATION for taxation of costs following the judgment of the Court of First Instance of 8 October 1992 in Case T-84/91 Meskens v Parliament [1992] ECR II-2335,
THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (Fifth Chamber),
composed of: D.P.M. Barrington, President, K. Lenaerts and A. Kalogeropoulos, Judges,
Registrar: H. Jung,
makes the following
Order
Grounds
1 By application lodged at the Registry of the Court of First Instance on 19 November 1991, Mrs Mireille Meskens, an official of the European Parliament, brought an action for an order that the Parliament pay compensation for the material and non-material damage which the applicant considered she had suffered on account of the defendant' s refusal to take the necessary measures to comply with the judgment of the Court of First Instance in Case T-56/89 Bataille v Parliament [1990] ECR II-597, which annulled, inter alia, the decision by which the Parliament rejected her application for internal competition No B/164.
2 By its judgment in Case T-84/91 Meskens v Parliament [1992] ECR II-2335, the Court of First Instance (Fifth Chamber) ordered the Parliament to pay the applicant the sum of BFR 50 000 by way of damages and to pay the costs incurred by the applicant and by the European Public Service Union, Brussels, which intervened in support of the applicant.
3 In that case, the applicant was represented by Jean-Noël Louis, of the Brussels Bar, and the intervener by Gérard Collin, of the Brussels Bar, and at the hearing by Véronique Leclerc, of the Brussels Bar.
4 By letter of 8 October 1992, Mr Louis sent the Agent for the Parliament a note concerning the fees and expenses incurred in the proceedings, showing the sum of BFR 130 000 and BFR 47 308 respectively, namely BFR 177 308 in total.
5 By letter of 19 November 1992, the Agent for the Parliament, relying on the judgment of the Court of Justice in Case 54/77 Herpels v Commission [1978] ECR 585, paragraphs 45 to 48, according to which the intervention of a lawyer at the stage of the procedure prior to litigation in disputes between officials and their institutions is not necessary, disputed the inclusion by Mr Louis in his note of fees and expenses incurred during the pre-litigation stage of the procedure and requested him to revise the sums listed in that note.
6 Following an exchange of letters and continuing disagreement between Mr Louis and the Agent for the Parliament essentially as to whether it was correct to include as recoverable costs the expenses incurred at the pre-litigation stage of the procedure, Mr Louis sent the Agent for the Parliament by letter of 20 January 1993 a final note for fees and expenses for a total of BFR 202 008, showing the sum of BFR 150 000 by way of fees and BFR 52 008 by way of expenses. In order to explain the breakdown of the new amounts, Mr Louis stated in his letter of 20 January 1993 that following the series of requests sent to him by the Parliament to revise the sums recoverable, he had finally added to the amount of his fees those relating to the services which he had rendered at the pre-litigation stage of the procedure, amounting to BFR 20 000. Furthermore, Mr Louis explained that although he had deleted the expenses incurred at the pre-litigation stage of the procedure and finally included only the expenses incurred at the litigation stage, he had however increased the amount invoiced for each typed page, thereby complying with the recommendations of the Belgian Ordre National des Avocats (National Bar Council) on that subject, which had resulted in an increase in the recoverable costs of BFR 4 700.
7 By letter of 9 October 1992, Mrs Leclerc, acting on behalf of Mr Collin, with whom she had jointly represented the intervener, submitted to the Agent for the Parliament a note for fees and expenses for BFR 150 542, of which BFR 120 000 was for fees and BFR 30 542 for expenses.
8 By letter of 19 November 1992, the Agent for the Parliament requested Mr Collin to make a substantial reduction in those amounts, but there was no reply to that request.
9 In those circumstances the Parliament, by application lodged at the Registry of the Court of First Instance on 11 February 1992, applied for taxation of costs.
10 According to the applicant, the obligation imposed on officials to mention clearly the points of fact and law on which they intend to rely in support of their action, added to the procedural requirements, the fact that applications and complaints under Article 90 of the Staff Regulations must be exhaustive and sufficiently clear, as is apparent from the recent case-law of the Court of First Instance (Case T-52/90 Volger v Parliament [1992] ECR II-121), and the need to assess the expediency of bringing an action, necessitate the intervention of a lawyer at the pre-litigation stage of the procedure, where the official in question is not a lawyer. Accordingly, the expenses incurred in order to obtain the advice of a lawyer during the pre-litigation stage of the procedure ought to constitute recoverable costs.
11 Furthermore, the applicant and the intervener state that the expenses which are disputed by the Parliament are those which follow from the difference between the previous invoicing and the final invoicing of the typed pages, the final invoicing amounting to BFR 300 per typed page and BFR 10 for each photocopy, in accordance with a recommendation of the Belgian Ordre National des Avocats applicable in that regard.
12 Finally, as regards fees, the applicant and the intervener state that, according to the aforementioned recommendation as regards the hourly scale applicable and regard being had to the number of hours worked, the costs recoverable by the applicant in respect of fees amounting to BFR 349 312 and those recoverable by the intervener to BFR 197 437. By limiting the fees to BFR 65 000 per document as regards the applicant (drafting of the application for annulment and representation at the oral procedure) and to BFR 60 000 per document as regards the intervener (drafting of the statement of observations and representation at the oral procedure), their advisers therefore satisfactorily reduced their fees.
13 The Court of First Instance considers that, as the Court of Justice has held on several occasions, the Community judicature "is not empowered to tax the fees payable by the parties to their own lawyers but it may determine the amount of those fees which may be recovered from the party ordered to pay the costs". It follows that the Court of First Instance "is not obliged to take account of any national scales of lawyers' fees or any agreement in relation to fees concluded between the party concerned and his agents or advisers". Since Community law does not contain any provisions laying down a scale of fees, the Court must consider all the facts of the case, taking into account the purpose and nature of the proceedings, their significance from the point of view of Community law, as well as the difficulties presented by the case, the amount of work generated by the dispute for the agents and advisers involved and the financial interest which the parties had in the proceedings (order of the Court of Justice of 26 November 1985 in Case 318/82 Leeuwarder Papierwarenfabriek v Commission [1985] ECR 3727; order of the Court of First Instance of 25 February 1992 in Joined Cases T-8/89 and T-24/89 Tagaras v Court of Justice [1992] ECR II-153).
14 Regard being had to the foregoing considerations and the difficulty of the case, the number of pleadings drafted, the fact that the applicant waived her right to lodge a reply, and finally the fact that, even if the course of the pre-litigation procedure in disputes between officials and their institutions may sometimes render it appropriate for a lawyer to be employed, the fees due for the services of that lawyer in the pre-litigation stage of the procedure, which necessarily serve to reduce accordingly the volume of work which the lawyer is requested to carry out during the litigation stage, do not constitute recoverable expenses, the total amount of costs to be reimbursed to the applicant by way of fees and expenses must be set at BFR 150 000, to be increased by any value added tax due on that amount.
15 Finally, regard being had also to the difficulty of the case and to the number of pleadings drafted, the total amount of costs to be reimbursed to the intervener by way of fees and expenses must be set at BFR 50 000, to be increased by any value added tax due on that amount.
16 Since the Court of First Instance, when determining the recoverable costs, took account of all the circumstances of the case until the time of such determination, it is not necessary to give a separate decision on the costs incurred by the parties in connection with these supplementary proceedings (the orders in Leeuwarder Papierwarenfabriek v Commission and Tagaras v Court of Justice, cited above).
Operative part
On those grounds,
THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fifth Chamber)
hereby orders as follows:
1. The total amount of costs recoverable by the applicant shall be BFR 150 000, to be increased by any value added tax due on that amount.
2. The total amount of costs recoverable by the intervener shall be BFR 50 000, to be increased by any value added tax due on that amount.
Luxembourg, 5 July 1993.
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