16.12.2019

Official Journal of the European Union

C 423/11

(Case C-423/18) (<span class="super note-tag">1</span>)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Agriculture - Common organisation of markets - Regulation (EC) No 967/2006 - Article 3(2) - Sugar - Surplus amount - Time limit for notifying the total levy to be paid - Time limit for a retrospective correction - Principles of proportionality, legal certainty and the protection of legitimate expectations)

(2019/C 423/13)

Language of the case: German

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Südzucker AG

Defendant: Hauptzollamt Karlsruhe

Operative part of the judgment

1.The first sentence of Article 3(2) of Commission Regulation (EC) No 967/2006 of 29 June 2006 laying down detailed rules for the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 as regards sugar production in excess of the quota must be interpreted as meaning that, where a notification of a levy on a sugar surplus is sent by the competent authority of a Member State to the sugar producer concerned in accordance with the time limit provided for by that provision, that time limit applies, in principle, also to the correction of such a notification resulting from a review carried out under Article 10 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 952/2006 of 29 June 2006 laying down detailed rules for the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 318/2006 as regards the management of the Community market in sugar and the quota system, as amended by Commission Regulation (EC) No 707/2008 of 24 July 2008. A failure to comply with that deadline may however be accepted where the competent national authority, without negligence on its part, did not know the details of the undertaking's sugar production and where that lack of knowledge may reasonably be attributed to the undertaking, because it has not acted in good faith and has not complied with all the relevant provisions. It is for the referring court to determine whether such is the case in the main proceedings, in the light of all of the facts of that case.

2.In the absence of provisions of EU law concerning the time limit within which the Member States must send to sugar producers a corrected notification of a levy on a surplus of sugar produced, after the expiry of the time limit fixed by the first sentence of Article 3(2) of Regulation No 967/2006, it is for the national court to verify, in each specific case and in the light of all of the circumstances of the case in the main proceedings, whether that time limit respects the principles of equivalence and effectiveness and the principle of legal certainty.

(<span class="note">1</span>) OJ C 373, 15.10.2018.