Traduction de «Procedural defect » (Anglais → Français) :

Article 14(3) of Council Regulation (EC) No 659/1999 of 22 March 1999 laying down detailed rules for the application of Article [88] of the EC Treaty is to be interpreted as not precluding, in circumstances in which amounts corresponding to the aid in question have already been recovered, annulment by the national court of assessments issued in order to recover the unlawful State aid on grounds of there being a procedural defect, where it is possible to rectify that procedural defect under national law. That provision does, however, preclude those amounts being paid once again, even provisionally, to the beneficiary of that aid.

Furthermore, in such a case, provision must be made to guarantee procedures whereby any allegedly illegal measure taken by the review body or any alleged defect in the exercise of the powers conferred on it can be the subject of judicial review or review by another body which is a court or tribunal within the meaning of Article 234 of the Treaty and independent of both the contracting authority/entity and the review body.

The reopening of cases must remain very exceptional and should be limited to the discovery of a decisive factor which was unknown to the party claiming the revision and only on the grounds of a fundamental procedural defect or an act which was held by a final court decision to constitute a criminal offence.

An application for revision of a judgment may exceptionally be made to the Community Patent Court on discovery of a fact which is of such a nature as to be a decisive factor, and which, when the judgment was given, was unknown to the party claiming the revision, and only on the grounds of a fundamental procedural defect or of an act which was held, by a final court decision, to constitute a criminal offence.

Once a judgment of the Community Patent Court becomes final and can no longer be subject to appeal, there should be no further possibility to reopen the case except in the very limited situation of a revision under Article 44 of the Statute and Article 17 of its Annex II in case of a fundamental procedural defect or a criminal offence.

Consequently, adaptations to this provision are proposed in Article 17 of Annex II to the Statute limiting a revision to cases of a fundamental procedural defect or a criminal offence in the proceedings that led to the judgment.