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28.08.2023

Tax & Financial Standards New Judgments of the ECJ For August 2023

Tax & Financial Standards New Judgments of the ECJ For August 2023

Tax&Financial Standards (T&FSt) – International Financial Reporting Standards, Date or entry into force: 1.01.2023 (consolidated version), in 4 languages - Bulgarian, English, German and French

July

Joined Cases С-363/21 and C-364/21 of 13 July 2023

Obligation on Member States to provide remedies sufficient to ensure effective legal protection in the fields covered by EU law — Economic policy — European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union (ESA) — Requirements for budgetary frameworks of the Member States — National legislation limiting the jurisdiction of the audit court — Principles of effectiveness and equivalence — Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union — Concepts of „independent bodies“ and „budgetary framework“

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Classification of institutional units in sector S.13 (general government) General government. EU statistical legislation. Control mechanisms. National budgetary frameworks. Effective judicial protection. Judicial review by a court of auditors or by the administrative courts. The principles of equivalence and effectiveness do not preclude national legislation which limits the jurisdiction of the audit court to rule on the merits of the inclusion of an entity on the list of government units, provided that the effectiveness of those regulations and of that directive and the effective judicial protection required by EU law are guaranteed.

Concepts of „independent bodies“ and „budgetary framework“.

Two sets of proceedings with regard to the inclusion of Fe and FI on the list of government units in the consolidated income statement of the public authorities (‘the ISTAT list’).

С-107/23 of 24 July 2023

Protection of the financial interests of the European Union — Obligation to provide for criminal penalties — Serious VAT fraud — Limitation period for criminal liability — Judgment of a constitutional court invalidating a national provision governing the grounds for interrupting that period — Systemic risk of impunity — Protection of fundamental rights — Principle that offences and penalties must be defined by law — Requirements of foreseeability and precision of criminal law — Principle of the retroactive application of the more lenient criminal law (lex mitior) — Principle of legal certainty — Duty on the courts of a Member State to disapply judgments of the constitutional court and/or the supreme court of that Member State in the event that they are incompatible with EU law — Disciplinary liability of judges in the event of non-compliance with those judgments  — Principle of the primacy of EU law

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

PFI Convention. Obligation to counter fraud affecting the Union’s financial interests by taking dissuasive and effective measures. the courts of a Member State, required to disapply a national standard of protection relating to the principle of the retroactive application of the more lenient criminal law (lex mitior) which makes it possible, including in the context of appeals brought against final judgments, to call into question the interruption of the limitation period for criminal liability in such cases by procedural acts which took place before such a finding of invalidity. The principle of primacy of EU law is precluding national legislation or a national practice under which the ordinary national courts of a Member State are bound by the decisions of the constitutional court and by those of the supreme court of that Member State and cannot, for that reason and at the risk of incurring the disciplinary liability of the judges concerned, disapply of their own motion the case-law resulting from those decisions.

Extraordinary appeals brought by the appellants seeking to have set aside the final judgments convicting them of tax evasion and establishment of an organised criminal group and imposing prison sentences pursuant to those convictions.