Actions for Damages

Actions for Damages in Europe

Actions for Damages (Articles 268 and 340(2) TFEU)

Content about Actions For Damages from the publication “The ABC of European Union law” (2010, European Union) by Klaus-Dieter Borchardt.

Citizens and undertakings – and also Member States – that sustain damage by reason of a fault committed by EU staff have the possibility to file actions for damages with the Court of Justice. The basis for EU liability is not fully set out by the Treaties and is otherwise governed by the general principles common to the laws of the Member States. The Court has fleshed this out, holding that the following conditions must be satisfied before an award of damages can be made: (1) there must be an unlawful act by a Union institution or by a member of its staff in the exercise of his or her functions. An unlawful act takes place when there is a serious infringement of a rule of Union law which confers rights on an individual, undertaking or Member State or has been passed to protect them. Laws recognised to have a protective nature are in particular the fundamental rights and freedoms of the internal market or the fundamental principles of the protection of legitimate expectations and proportionality. The infringement is sufficiently serious if the institution concerned has exceeded the limits of its discretionary power to a considerable degree. The Court tends to gear its findings to the narrowness of the category of persons affected by the offending measure and the scale of the damage sustained, which must be in excess of the commercial risk that can be reasonably expected in the business sector concerned; (2) actual harm must have been suffered; (3) there must be a causal link between the act of the Union institution and the damage sustained; (4) intent or negligence do not have to be proved.


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