News

28.08.2025

Tax & Financial Standards New Judgments of the ECJ For August 2025

Tax & Financial Standards New Judgments of the ECJ For August 2025

August

С-206/24 of 1 August 2025

Customs union - Customs duties collected in infringement of EU law - Conditions for repayment on their own initiative -  Finding that the national customs authorities are aware of the identity of the operators concerned and of the amount to be repaid to each of them – Obligation on those authorities to take the necessary and appropriate measures to obtain the information necessary to make such repayment
Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:
Repayment or remission of import or export duties. The existence of an obligation on a national customs authority to repay customs duties on its own initiative is subject to the fact that that authority has itself established, before the expiry of a period of three years from the entry in the accounts of those duties, that those duties have been wrongly collected, that finding implying that that authority is aware of the identity of the persons who paid those duties. Right to good administration.
Proceedings concerning the repayment ex officio of customs duties wrongly collected in respect of imports of goods from third countries into Andorra.

С-427/23 of 1 August 2025

Value added tax -  Exemptions on exportation - Service for the administration of VAT refunds to customers not resident in the European Union – Single supply – Distinct and independent supplies – Principal or ancillary supply – Exemptions – Protection of legitimate expectations – Taxable amount
Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:
Refund of amounts paid as a VAT advance to customers not resident in the European Union. Administration fees. Independent supply subject to VAT. The protection of legitimate expectations must be interpreted as not precluding the tax authorities from subsequently making certain supplies of services subject to VAT where those authorities have checked and accepted the taxable person’s VAT returns for several years without challenging the classification of those supplies of services as VAT-exempt supplies.
Proceedings between H and the  Tax and Customs Authority concerning the latter’s refusal to grant an exemption from value added tax on fees for the administration of VAT refunds to customers not resident in the European Union.

С-433/24 of 1 August 2025

Value added tax - Special arrangements for second-hand goods, works of art, collectors’ items and antiques – Taxable dealers – Margin scheme - Supply by the creator through a legal person
Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:
The supply by taxable dealers of works of art supplied to them by the creator or his or her successors in title acting through a legal person falls within the scope of Directive 2006/112/EC. Special taxation arrangements for the resale, inter alia, of works of art acquired from their creators.
Proceedings concerning additional value added tax assessments.

С-600/23 of 1 August 2025

Obligation of Member States to provide remedies sufficient to ensure effective legal protection in the fields covered by Union law — Right to an effective remedy — Possibility of recourse to arbitration — National legislation conferring on that arbitral award the authority of res judicata between the parties and probative value vis-à-vis third parties — Powers and obligations of the national courts before which that arbitral award is relied on — Effective review of the consistency of such an arbitral award with the principles and provisions falling under EU public policy
Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:
Effective judicial protection. Legal remedy against the arbitral award. The conformity of an arbitral award with EU law reviewed by a court of a third country. National rules according the status of res judicata. TEU, read in conjunction with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as precluding
- the authority of res judicata from being conferred within the territory of a Member State on an award made by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), in the relations between the parties to the dispute in the context of which that award was made, where that dispute is linked to the pursuit of a sport as an economic activity within the territory of the European Union which form part of EU public policy has not first been subject to effective review by a court;
- probative value from being conferred, as a consequence of that authority of res judicata, on such an award within the territory of that Member State, in the relations between the parties to that dispute and third parties.
Proceedings, concerning an application for a declaration of invalidity, for the adoption of injunctions and for compensation for the damage which RFC claims to have suffered as a result of the implementation, by three associations, of rules which, according to that club, should be regarded as invalid on the ground that they infringe EU law.

С-602/24 of 1 August 2025

Value added tax - Exemptions on exportation - Supply of goods dispatched or transported to a destination outside the European Union - Refusal of the exemption on exportation – Principles of fiscal neutrality and proportionality - Transport of goods outside the European Union following an agreement between the person acquiring the goods and the supplier providing for their supply in another Member State - Concept of ‘supply of goods’
Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:
The exemption provided for in Directive 2006/112/EC covers a supply of goods initially declared by the supplier as an intra-Community supply which, without the supplier’s knowledge, was made outside the territory of the European Union by the person acquiring the goods, where the export at issue has been established by the tax authorities on the basis of the customs documents. Goods which have actually left the territory of the European Union. Proof.
Concept of ‘supply of goods’.
Proceedings concerning a refusal to exempt from value added tax exports of goods outside the territory of the European Union.

С-665/23 of 1 August 2025

Payment services in the internal market — Obligation for the payment service user to notify the payment service provider ‘without undue delay’ of the loss, theft, misappropriation or unauthorised use of his or her payment instrument — Notification of unauthorised payment transactions — Rectification of such a transaction by the payment service provider subject to the obligation for the user of those services to notify that transaction ‘without undue delay … and no later than 13 months after the debit date’
Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:
Unauthorised payment transactions. Obligation of the payment service provider to issue a refund. The payment service user is, in principle, deprived of the right to obtain rectification of a transaction if he or she did not notify his or her payment service provider without undue delay on becoming aware of an unauthorised payment transaction, even though he or she notified it to that payment service provider within 13 months after the debit date. Successive unauthorised payment transactions resulting from the loss, theft, misappropriation or unauthorised use of a payment instrument. Delayed notification without intent or gross negligence. Scope of the right to a refund.
Proceedings, concerning a refusal to refund withdrawals of money allegedly made without authorisation, on account of allegedly delayed notification.

С-794/23 of 1 August 2025

Incorrect amount of VAT entered on the invoice — Simplified invoicing — Services invoiced to non-taxable persons and to taxable persons who do not have a right to deduct VAT — Obligation to pay the part of the VAT invoiced incorrectly — A final consumer who do not have a right to deduct input VAT
Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:
Incorrect, overstated VAT mentioned on invoices. Identification of invoices posing a risk of loss of tax revenue. A taxable person who has supplied a service and who has stated on the invoice an amount of VAT calculated using the incorrect rate is not liable for the part of the VAT which was incorrectly invoiced. A final consumer who do not have a right to deduct input VAT.
Proceedings between the tax authority and a company P, concerning the tax authority’s refusal of an application to adjust P’s value added tax (VAT) return on the ground that the invoices P issued featured a VAT amount calculated using the incorrect rate.

July

С-582/23 of 3 July 2025

Unfair terms in consumer contracts — Insolvency proceedings relating to a natural person — Bankruptcy court has no power to examine ex officio whether the terms of a contract that gave rise to a claim on the list of claims are unfair — Principle of effectiveness
Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:
Ex officio examination by the bankruptcy court of the existence of unfair terms and the possibility of ordering interim measures. The principle of effectiveness does not allow national legislation, which provides that, in insolvency proceedings relating to natural persons, once the list of claims has been approved by a judicial authority, which has not examined the possible unfairness of the terms of the contract concerned, and proceedings have been commenced before the bankruptcy court, the latter is bound by that list.
Bankruptcy proceedings relating to a bankrupt consumer, concerning the establishment of a plan to repay his creditors, which include a bank, namely G.