Judgment_paragraph 43 · TestBioTech eV and Others v European Commission (C-82/17 P)

43The first alternative complaint concerns paragraphs 140 to 142 and 201 of the judgment under appeal, which are worded as follows:140 Firstly, inasmuch as the first applicant [(now the first appellant)] refers in that context to the literature listed in Annex I to the application, entitled “Table on the impact of spraying genetically modified plants with a glyphosate-based herbicide”, it should be remembered that, in the present case, the first applicant merely makes a general allegation that differences between the modified soybean, its comparator and the reference substances had been identified and that the scientific literature relied on is of the utmost importance in so far as it indicates that an appropriate study of the effects of spraying would likely have led to further, significant differences.141 In that regard, it should be remembered that under Article 21 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union and Article 44(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court of 2 May 1991, each application is required to state the subject matter of the proceedings and a summary of the pleas in law on which the application is based. That statement must be sufficiently clear and precise to enable the defendant to prepare its defence and the Court to rule on the action, if necessary, without any further information. It is necessary, for an action to be admissible, that the basic matters of law and fact relied on be indicated, at least in summary form, coherently and intelligibly in the application itself. Whilst the body of the application may be supported and supplemented on specific points by references to extracts from documents annexed thereto, a general reference to other documents, even those annexed to the application, cannot make up for the absence of the essential arguments in law which, in accordance with the abovementioned provisions, must appear in the application. The annexes may be taken into consideration only in so far as they support or supplement pleas or arguments expressly set out by applicants in the body of their pleadings and in so far as it is possible to determine precisely what are the matters they contain that support or supplement those pleas or arguments. Furthermore, it is not for the Court to seek and identify in the annexes the pleas and arguments on which it may consider the action to be based, since the annexes have a purely evidential and instrumental function. That interpretation of Article 21 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union and Article 44(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure [of the General Court] of 2 May 1991 also applies to the reply (see judgment of 14 March 2013, Fresh Del Monte Produce v Commission, T‑587/08, EU:T:2013:129, paragraphs 268 to 271 and the case-law cited).142 In accordance with that case-law, the formulation of this complaint does not enable the Court to give a ruling, if appropriate, without other information in support, and to allow the annexes to provide the detail of an argument which is not presented in a sufficiently clear and precise manner in the application would be contrary to their purely evidential and instrumental function. Therefore, the argument, referring to Annex I to the application, that abundant scientific literature supporting the fact that spraying of certain herbicides on genetically modified plants affects their composition was not taken into consideration, must be rejected as inadmissible.…201 Moreover, it must be noted that although as part of this complaint the first applicant refers to the literature listed in Annex II to the application, headed “Table B: Summary of scientific literature showing the numerous plant constituents and chemicals which can have synergistic or combinatorial effects with the inserted Cry proteins/Bt toxins”, it merely alleges generally that that literature was ignored by the Commission. In accordance with the case-law referred to in paragraph 141 above, such a formulation of the complaint does not enable the Court to give a ruling, if appropriate, without other information in support, and to allow the annexes to provide the detail of an argument which is not presented in a sufficiently clear and precise manner in the application would be contrary to their purely evidential and instrumental function. It is therefore appropriate to reject as inadmissible the argument that the Commission ignored the literature listed in Annex II to the application.’