1In a judgment of 9 January 1979, which was received at the Court Registry on 2 February 1979, the Hof van Cassatie of Belgium referred a question to the Court, in Case 16/79, for a preliminary ruling under Article 177 of the EEC Treaty concerning the interpretation of Article 30 of the EEC Treaty. Since the same court made identical references to the Court by judgments of the same date in Cases 17/79, 18/79, 19/79 and 20/79, those cases are joined for the purposes of judgment. The questions arose in the course of criminal proceedings brought before the Belgian courts by the Openbaar Ministerie against the defendants in the main proceedings, who are producers of or traders in animal feeding-stuffs and who are accused of increasing their prices on a number of occasions between 1 September 1972 and 4 April 1973 without first notifying the Minister for Economic Affairs in accordance with the conditions laid down by the Belgian Ministerial Order of 22 December 1971 (Belgisch Staatsblad of 28 December 1971).
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