Press Release

José Luís da Cruz Vilaça, Equity Partner heading PLMJ Competition Practice Area and his team have represented 87 companies operating in the tomato industry sector from 5 different European countries (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece) in an historical victory before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities amounting to a compensation to be paid to these claimant companies of a global sum between 24 and 28 million Euro.

On the two first points of The judgment of the 1st Chamber of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities of 26th November 2008, concerning the amounts due as compensation, interests and reimbursement of costs, the judgment upholds, in general, the agreement reached between the claimant companies and the European Commission, and condemns the Commission to:
- pay to all claimant companies a compensation corresponding to an increase of 15,54 % of the amount of aid to production received for the 2000/2001 campaign, as set in annex II of Regulation No 1519/2000;
- pay compensatory interests, as of the effective payment of the aid to each claimant company until the issuance of the judgment, at the rate settled by the ECB for the main refinancing operations, plus two points, for most of the claimant companies. As concerns the three (3) claimant companies that have not provided the financial elements requested, the compensatory interest shall be calculated on the basis of the annual inflation rate as stated, for the period at issue, by Eurostat for the Member state where they are established.


This success constitutes a very rare event in the EC courts case-law, since very few cases exist of extra-contractual liability of the EU institutions for legislative acts recognized by the ECJ.