Provisional text

30 June 2025 (*)

( Appeal – Intervention – Second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union – Interest in the result of the case – Leave to intervene not granted )

In Case C‑454/24 P,

APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 26 June 2024,

Single Resolution Board (SRB),

represented initially by D. Ceran, C. De Falco, H. Ehlers and K.-Ph. Wojcik, then by D. Ceran, C. De Falco and H. Ehlers, acting as Agents, and H.-G. Kamann, Rechtsanwalt, and F. Louis, avocat,

appellant,

supported by:

European Commission,

represented by C. Auvret and D. Triantafyllou, acting as Agents,

intervener in the appeal,

the other parties to the proceedings being:

Dexia SA,

represented by H. Gilliams, advocaat, and J.-M. Gollier, avocat,

applicant at first instance,

supported by:

Bundesverband deutscher Banken eV,

established in Berlin (Germany), represented by H. Berger, Rechtsanwalt, A. Komninos, dikigoros, and M. Weber, Rechtsanwalt,

Fédération bancaire française,

established in Paris (France), represented by C. Duriez, A. Gosset-Grainville and M. Trabucchi, avocats,

Österreichischer Sparkassenverband (ÖSPV),

established in Vienna (Austria), represented by A. Brenneis, G. Eisenberger and J. Holzmann, Rechtsanwälte,

interveners in the appeal,

European Parliament,

represented by G.C. Bartram, O. Denkov, J. Etienne, M. Menegatti and L. Visaggio, acting as Agents,

Council of the European Union,

represented by J. Bauerschmidt, M. Chavrier, E. d’Ursel and A. Westerhof Löfflerová, acting as Agents,

interveners at first instance,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT,

having regard to the proposal of B. Smulders, Judge-Rapporteur,

after hearing the Advocate General, D. Spielmann,

makes the following

1By its appeal, the Single Resolution Board (SRB) asks the Court of Justice to set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 10 April 2024, Dexia v SRB (2022 ex ante contributions) (T‑411/22, EU:T:2024:216; ‘the judgment under appeal’) by which the General Court annulled the decision of the SRB of 11 April 2022 on the calculation of the 2022 ex ante contributions to the Single Resolution Fund (SRF) (SRB/ES/2022/18) (‘the decision at issue’) in so far as it concerns Dexia SA. In its response, Dexia contented that the Court should dismiss the appeal.

2By orders of the President of the Court of 19 December 2024, SRB v Dexia (C‑454/24 P, EU:C:2024:1061), of 19 December 2024, SRB v Dexia (C‑454/24 P, EU:C:2024:1062), and of 19 December 2024, SRB v Dexia (C‑454/24 P, EU:C:2024:1063), Fédération bancaire française, Österreichischer Sparkassenverband (ÖSPV) and Bundesverband deutscher Banken eV, respectively, were granted leave to intervene in the present case in support of the form of order sought by Dexia.

3By documents lodged at the Court Registry on 7, 11 and 13 February 2025, respectively, DZ Bank AG Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank Oyj applied, on the basis of the second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union and Article 129(4) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, for leave to intervene in support of the form of order sought by Dexia.

4Following service on the parties by the Registrar of the Court of those applications to intervene in accordance with Article 131(1) of the Rules of Procedure, applicable to the appeal proceedings by virtue of Article 190(1) of those rules, the SRB, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament submitted, within the period prescribed, their observations on those applications and raised objections.

The applications to intervene

5It should be noted at the outset that, where applications to intervene are made after the expiry of the time limit set out in Article 190(2) of the Rules of Procedure, regard must be had to the first sentence of Article 129(4) of those rules, applicable to the appeal proceedings by virtue of Article 190(1) thereof, which provides that the President of the Court may take into consideration an application to intervene which is made after the expiry of that time limit, provided that it is made before the decision to open the oral part of the procedure is adopted.

6In the present case, since the applications to intervene submitted by DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank were made after the expiry of that time limit but before the adoption of that decision, they are to be taken into consideration.

7In support of their applications to intervene, DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank submit, in essence, that they have a direct, and not only an indirect, interest in the result of the present case since, unlike applicants for leave to intervene who are merely in a similar situation to that of a party to a dispute and who put forward the same pleas and arguments as such a party, they are in the same situation as Dexia. They point out that the decision at issue is addressed to them also and that the subject matter of the cases SRB v Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (C‑846/24 P), SRB v DZ Hyp (C‑852/24 P) and SRB v Nordea Bank (C‑884/24 P), being appeals to which they are parties, is essentially identical to that of the present case.

8In that regard, it must be borne in mind that, under the second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, any person, whether natural or legal, having an interest in the result of a case submitted to the Court, other than a case between Member States, between institutions of the Union or between Member States, of the one part, and institutions of the Union, of the other part, may intervene in that case.

9It is settled case-law that the concept of an ‘interest in the result of a case’, within the meaning of that provision, must be defined in the light of the subject matter of the case and be understood as meaning a direct, existing interest in the ruling on the form of order sought, and not as an interest in relation to the pleas in law or arguments put forward. The words ‘result of a case’ refer to the final decision sought, as set out in the operative part of the future judgment or order (order of the President of the Court of 29 February 2024, EDPO v SRB, C‑413/23 P, EU:C:2024:199, paragraph 8 and the case-law cited).

10In that regard, it is appropriate, in particular, to ascertain whether the applicant for leave to intervene is directly affected by the measure at issue and whether his or her interest in the result of the case is certain. Generally, an interest of an economic operator in the result of the case can be considered to be sufficiently direct only in so far as that result is capable of altering the legal position of the applicant for leave to intervene (order of the President of the Court of 26 September 2024, Air France-KLM and Air France v Ryanair and Malta Air, C‑192/24 P, EU:C:2024:811, paragraph 8 and the case-law cited).

11Furthermore, the right to intervene in a dispute before the Court must be reconciled with the principle of the proper administration of justice. That principle provides justification for the Court, when it is seised of a particularly large number of cases concerning identical or intrinsically linked questions of law, being able to designate from among those cases one or more ‘pilot’ cases and to stay all the other cases pursuant to Article 55(1)(b) of the Rules of Procedure pending its decision(s) closing the proceedings in the pilot case(s). The designation of pilot cases, together with the stay of other cases concerning intrinsically linked or identical questions of law, facilitates and speeds up the process for dealing with such cases considerably and reduces the delay which that process causes in dealing with all the other cases also before the Court.

12It follows that the parties in cases stayed following the designation of one or more pilot cases by the General Court or the Court of Justice are not, in principle, to be granted, for that reason alone, leave to intervene in the proceedings in the pilot case(s). To grant those parties leave to intervene simply by virtue of the fact that their case was stayed following the designation of a pilot case would undermine the aim of such designation, which is to facilitate the Court’s handling of a large number of cases in order to ensure the proper administration of justice (see, to that effect, order of the President of the Court of 30 April 2020, Commission v HSBC Holdings and Others, C‑806/19 P, EU:C:2020:364, paragraph 22 and the case-law cited).

13The designation of pilot cases by the General Court or the Court of Justice does not lead to disregard for the right to a fair hearing available to the parties whose cases have been stayed following that designation. In the present case, the right of DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank to assert their rights and set out their arguments – which flows from Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and, in particular, from the guarantees inherent in the right to an effective remedy enshrined in that provision – is adequately guaranteed by virtue of their being parties to the separate appeal proceedings in the cases SRB v Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (C‑846/24 P), SRB v DZ Hyp (C‑852/24 P ) and SRB v Nordea Bank (C‑884/24 P) (see, to that effect, order of the President of the Court of 30 April 2020, Commission v HSBC Holdings and Others, C‑806/19 P, EU:C:2020:364, paragraph 21 and the case-law cited).

14In the present case, it is apparent from the appeal brought by the SRB that it sought, primarily, to have the judgment under appeal set aside and to have Dexia’s application for annulment dismissed; in the alternative, to have the case referred back to the General Court and, in the further alternative, to have the effects of the decision at issue maintained until the adoption of a new decision at the latest within six months of the delivery of the Court’s judgment. In its response, Dexia contended that the appeal should be dismissed.

15Whether the Court upholds or dismisses the appeal, the result of the case as set out in the operative part of the future judgment will not, as such, be capable of directly altering the legal position of DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg or Nordea Bank, since that result will only concern the legality of the judgment under appeal, by which the General Court annulled the decision at issue in so far as it related to the 2022 ex ante contribution to the SRB payable by Dexia. The decision at issue, although drafted and published in the form of a single decision, has to be treated as a bundle of individual decisions relating to the 2022 ex ante contributions to the SRF payable by each of the financial institutions referred to in that decision (see, by analogy, judgment of 14 September 1999, Commission v AssiDomän Kraft Products and Others, C‑310/97 P, EU:C:1999:407, paragraph 18).

16Thus, contrary to the situation where the separate action brought by an applicant for leave to intervene seeks annulment of the same act as that at issue in the case in which that applicant wishes to intervene (see, for example and by analogy, order of the President of the Court of 21 December 2016, Commission v Spain and Others, C‑128/16 P, EU:C:2016:1007, paragraphs 13 to 15), a decision of the Court confirming the annulment of the decision at issue, in so far as it relates to the 2022 ex ante contribution to the SRF payable by Dexia, would not have the consequence of making final the annulment, ex tunc and erga omnes, of the decisions of the SRB relating to the 2022 ex ante contributions to the SRF of institutions other than Dexia, even though the latter decisions and the decision relating to Dexia’s contribution were drafted and published in the form of a single decision.

17Consequently, the result of the present case will not, of itself, affect the legality of the judgments of the General Court of 23 October 2024, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg v SRB (2022 ex ante contributions) (T‑396/22, EU:T:2024:734), of 23 October 2024, DZ Bank v SRB (2022 ex ante contributions) (T‑401/22, EU:T:2024:739), of 23 October 2024, DZ Bank v SRB (2022 ex ante contributions) (T‑403/22, EU:T:2024:741), and of 23 October 2024, Nordea Bank v SRB (2022 ex ante contributions) (T‑430/22, EU:T:2024:743), annulling the decisions of the SRB concerning the contributions to the SRF of DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank, respectively. For the same reasons, nor will that result affect the validity of the orders of the General Court of 6 August 2024, DZ Bank v SRB (T‑484/23, EU:2024:525), of 6 August 2024, Nordea Bank v SRB (T‑412/23, EU:T:2024:526), and of 6 August 2024, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg v SRB (T‑441/23, EU:T:2024:555), annulling the decision of the SRB of 2 May 2023 on the calculation of the 2023 ex ante contributions to the SRF (SRB/ES/2023/23), in so far as it concerns DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank, respectively.

18By their applications to intervene, DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank are defending their own situations which, although comparable to Dexia’s, are nevertheless legally distinct from it. Indeed, the interest they are defending consists in demonstrating that the annulment by the General Court of the decisions of the SRB relating to their 2022 ex ante contributions to the SRF, and not the annulment of the decision of the SRB relating to Dexia’s contribution, is justified.

19It follows, moreover, from the arguments put forward by DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank that their alleged interest in the result of the present case in fact relates to the reasoning by which the General Court interpreted Article 70(2) of Regulation (EU) No 806/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 July 2014 establishing uniform rules and a uniform procedure for the resolution of credit institutions and certain investment firms in the framework of a Single Resolution Mechanism and a Single Resolution Fund and amending Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010 (OJ 2014 L 225, p. 1), and not to the result of the case as such. Such an interest is not sufficient to establish the existence of an interest in the result of a case in accordance with the case-law referred to in paragraph 9 above.

20Furthermore, to grant DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank leave to intervene in the present case would call into question the practical effect of the choice made by the Court, in the interests of the proper administration of justice, to uphold, out of more than 70 appeals brought by the SRB, the Council and credit or investment institutions against decisions of the General Court annulling, on very similar grounds, decisions of the SRB relating to the 2022 and 2023 ex ante

contributions to the SRF, seven cases as pilot cases, namely the present case and cases C‑529/24 P, C‑536/24 P, C‑537/24 P, C‑585/24 P, C‑671/24 P and C‑705/24 P. Indeed, as is apparent, in substance, from paragraph 12 above, if every party to a case which is stayed following the designation of a pilot case were to be granted leave to intervene in the latter case by reason of the stay of proceedings, the designation of a pilot case would no longer serve any purpose.

It follows that the applications to intervene submitted by DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank must be dismissed.

Costs

Under Article 138(1) of the Rules of Procedure, which applies to appeal proceedings by virtue of Article 184(1) thereof, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings.

Since the SRB has applied for DZ Bank Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank to be ordered to pay the costs, and since the latter have been unsuccessful in their applications to intervene, it must be held that they are each to bear their own costs in relation to those applications and to pay those incurred by the SRB in relation to those applications.

Since the Parliament and the Council have not applied for costs, they are each to bear their own costs relating to the applications to intervene.

On those grounds, the President of the Court hereby orders:

The applications to intervene submitted by DZ Bank AG Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank Oyj are dismissed.

DZ Bank AG Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank, Frankfurt am Main, Landesbank Baden-Württemberg and Nordea Bank Oyj shall each bear their owns costs and pay those incurred by the Single Resolution Board (SRB).

The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union shall each bear their own costs.

[Signature]

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Language of the case: French.