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Applications for interim measures - Interim measures - Conditions for granting - Measures not prejudging the decision on the substance - Main action concerning non-contractual liability of the Community - Payment of sums by way of advance on the damages claimed - Excluded
(EC Treaty, Arts 178, 186 and 215, second para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 107(3)and (4))
Interim measures which can be ordered by the judge dealing with an interlocutory application cannot have any object other than to safeguard, during the course of the procedure before the Court, the interests of one of the parties to the proceedings in order to prevent the judgment in the main action from being rendered illusory by being deprived of any practical effect. Such measures, in accordance with Article 107(3)and (4)of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, are therefore provisional and in principle lapse when final judgment is delivered. Consequently, they must not prejudge the decision on the substance of the case, that is to say they must not already decide the consequences of the decision to be given subsequently on the substance of the action.
An interlocutory application seeking an order that the Community pay amounts corresponding to a part of the amount at which the applicant evaluates the damage suffered in his main action under Article 178 and the second paragraph of Article 215 of the Treaty must therefore be dismissed.
To grant such an application would amount to anticipating the argument on the substance of the case since, when assessing whether there was a prima facie case, the judge dealing with the application would have to rule whether there was prima facie non-contractual liability on the part of the Community and then grant in part the measures sought in the main application, without the merits of that application in the light of the second paragraph of Article 215 of the Treaty having been examined. However, a finding of liability, with the effects thereby entailed, cannot be taken on the basis of a prima facie case; it must be based on a definitive assessment of the facts and pleas in law put forward, and therefore requires that a procedure be followed in which all the parties are guaranteed the right to a fair hearing.
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