New Chamber of the General Court of the European Union established to deal with EU VAT cases

18 October 2024| CATEGORIES: Customs, EU VAT, Excise, General Court, Preliminary rulings| TAGS: CJEU, Customs, EU, General Court, VAT

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) announced earlier this year that responsibility for preliminary rulings in six specific areas, including VAT and customs, was transferring to the General Court of the European Union with effect from 1 October 2024 (see our previous blog article for further details).

New Chamber of the General Court

The CJEU has now issued Press Release No 179/24 announcing that the General Court has designated the Judges who will sit in the newly created Chamber specialising in preliminary rulings on questions referred in these areas.

The Chamber will be presided over by the Vice-President of the General Court, Mr Savvas Papasavvas, and will sit with five Judges, who will be designated in rotation from ten nominated Judges. In addition, the General Court has elected two Judges to perform the duties of an Advocate General in dealing with requests for a preliminary ruling.

The term of office of the Judges and Advocates General dealing with requests for a preliminary ruling will run from October 2024 to August 2025.

This change has been implemented to ensure a better balance in the workload between the two courts.  For further details of the upward trend in the number of cases brought over the last decade see the CJEU’s Press Release No 59/24.

Future impact

The jurisdiction of the Court is limited to the validity and interpretation of EU law insofar as it is relevant to the specific legal dispute. It remains the responsibility of the national courts to establish the facts, take evidence and then ultimately decide the specific legal dispute. It will be interesting to monitor the impact this transfer of jurisdiction to the General Court has on the quality of jurisprudence in the affected areas.