Mugabe ally loses EU sanctions compensation case

9        The names of the first three applicants and Breco International were removed from the lists in question by Council Decision 2012/97/CFSP of 17 February 2012 amending Decision 2011/101 (OJ 2012 L 47, p. 50) and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 151/2012 of 21 February 2012 amending Regulation No 314/2004 (OJ 2012 L 49, p. 2).

10      Following the adoption of Decision 2012/97 and Implementing Regulation No 151/2012, the Court concluded, in the order of 6 September 2012 in Bredenkamp and Others v Commission (T‑145/09, not published, EU:T:2012:407), that there was no need to rule on the action lodged on 6 April 2009.

 Procedure and forms of order sought by the parties

11      By application lodged at the Court Registry on 24 January 2014, the applicants brought the present action.

12      The applicants claim that the Court should:

–        order the Council and the Commission to pay the damages and interest specified in the application;

–        order the Council and the Commission to pay compound interest at the Euribor rate + 2% from the date of the final judgment;

–        order the Council and the Commission to pay the costs.

13      The Council and the Commission contend that the Court should:

–        dismiss the action;

–        order the applicants to pay the costs.

14      The parties have submitted a number of written pleadings lodged in Case T‑145/09 Bredenkamp and Others v Commission. As there is no valid reason why those pleadings should not be accepted in the present case, they are definitively included in the case file. Moreover, none of the parties objects to the production of those pleadings by any of the other parties.

 Law

15      In support of their action, the applicants claim to have suffered five different heads of damage, material and non-material, caused by a series of unlawful conduct affecting the initial inclusion and the retention of their names in the list of persons referred to in Article 6 of Regulation No 314/2004. That unlawful conduct is set out in four heads of claim.

16      The Council considers, as a preliminary point, that the application must be dismissed as manifestly inadmissible or as manifestly unfounded, owing to the manifest inadequacy of the evidence adduced in the chapter relating to the heads of damage which the applicants claim to have suffered.

Continued next page

(2966 VIEWS)