Judgment_paragraph 150 · Travelex Global and Financial Services Ltd, formerly Thomas Cook Group Ltd and Interpayment Services Ltd v Commission of the European Communities (T-195/00)

150The applicants submit that the corollary of the fundamental right to property is the right that it not be appropriated, a right enshrined in Article 1 of the Additional Protocol to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which the institutions of the Community are obliged to respect (see Case 11/70 internationale Handelsgesellschaft [1970] ECR 1125, the Opinions of Advocate General Capotorti in Hauer [1979] ECR 3727, and Advocate General Jacobs in Case 5/88 Wachauf [1989] ECR 2609, paragraph 22). The measures adopted by the Commission in this case amount to an unlawful expropriation of the applicants' property because they result in the loss of distinctiveness and value of ISL's figurative sign. The Commission could easily have avoided causing damage to the applicants and if the applicants have no remedies for infringement of their trade mark rights, as contended by the Commission, they will receive no compensation for the loss of their intellectual property and their business goodwill. Moreover, the Commission had no justification to act as it did and, even assuming that its actions were justified or lawful, it is still obliged to make good the damage caused to the applicants (see the Opinion of Advocate General Sir Gordon Slynn in Case 59/83 Biovilac v EEC [1984] ECR 4057).