Tag: Exam questions

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Farrell and direct effect. CJEU holds that Foster criteria apply disjunctively.

I reported on Sharpston AG’s Opinion in C-413/15 Farrell just before the summer break. The case considers the C-188/89 Foster criteria on what constitutes an ’emanation from the state’, for Directives to potentially have direct effect in individuals’ relations with that body. The CJEU held last week, in Grand Chamber, and decided the criteria apply disjunctively, not conjunctively. It is sufficient that the private body concerned have special powers beyond those which result from the normal rules applicable to relations between individuals; it need not, additionally, be a body under control of the State.

The Irish legislature conferred on the MIBI (Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland) special powers beyond those which result from the normal rules applicable to relations between individuals, in that, on the basis of that statutory provision, that private organisation has the power to require all those insurers to become members of it and to contribute funds for the performance of the task conferred on it by the Irish State.

A further and important piece in the jigsaw that is direct effect. Next up no doubt: what exactly are the boundaries of ‘special powers’. Conflicts lawyers may recognise some of the discussions surrounding ‘civil and commercial’.

Geert.

 

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Farrell and direct effect. Sharpston AG: Patron Saint of examiners.

Perhaps it’s the warm weather or the balmy number of exams I am having to compile this term, but my imagination was running dry. One more exam to compose and it is for my American University summer law school students. A course on EU integration. Scratching my head on trying to find yet another variation on the direct effect theme, Advocate General Sharpston came to the rescue. So far I have only seen the press release (the Opinion itself is not on Curia yet) in C-413/15 Farrell which considers the C-188/89 Foster criteria on what constitutes an ’emanation from the state’. From the press release:

‘Ever since the Court developed the doctrine of the direct effect of directives and rendered it applicable to ‘vertical’ disputes between the individual and the State, but declined to extend that doctrine ‘horizontally’ to cover disputes between private parties, it has been essential to know what are the boundaries of ‘the State’ for the purposes of applying that doctrine. In its judgment in Foster, the Court set out a series of tests for determining the types of bodies that might be treated as ‘the State’ or, although it did not use that expression in its judgment, ‘an emanation of the State’ in that context. It did so by reference to existing case-law, which included a reference to the body in question having ‘special powers’.’

The focus of the Opinion is on those ‘special powers’.

In C-365/05, the Court had already held that Ireland had not properly implemented Directive 90/232. the question now before the court si whether the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) is an emanation of the State, engaging therefore vertical direct effect. The Irish High Court held it does. The Irish Supreme Court now asks whether the Foster criteria need to be applied cumulatively. Sharpston AG clearly suggests they do not, indeed that they are not limitative either: see the text for more detail of the criteria examined by Ms Sharpston.

Now, once the full text is out, one can of course chew over this a bit more. But for an introductory course, the press release suffices.

Geert.

 

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