III. CASE-LAW

III.1. Court of Justice of the European Union

Judgement of the Court, of 20 December 2017, Case C-492/16
Reference for a preliminary ruling. Intellectual and industrial property. Patents. Medicinal products for human use. Regulation (EC) No 469/2009 – article 18. Plant -protection products. Regulation (EC) ° 1610/96 – Article 17 (2). Supplementary protection certificate. Duration. Fixing the date of expiry. Consequences of a judgment of the Court. Possibility or requirement to rectify date of expiry.

Summary:
“1.Article 18 du Regulation (EC) No 469/2009 of the European Parliament and the Council of 6 May 2009 concerning the supplementary protection certificate for medicinal products, read in the light of Article 17(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1610/96 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 1996 concerning the creation of a supplementary protection certificate for plant protection products, must be interpreted as meaning that the date of the first authorisation to place the product on the market, as stated in an application for a supplementary protection certificate, on the basis of which the national authority competent for granting such a certificate calculated the duration of the certificate, is incorrect in a situation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, where the date led to a method for calculating the duration of the certificate which does not comply with the requirements of Article 13(1) of Regulation No 469/2009, as interpreted by a subsequent judgment of the Court.
2. Article 18 of Regulation No 469/2009, read in the light of recital 17 and of Article 17(2) of Regulation No 1610/96, must be interpreted as meaning that, in a situation such as that set out in point 1 of this operative part, the holder of a supplementary protection certificate may, under Article 18 of Regulation No 469/2009, bring an appeal for rectification of the duration stated in the certificate, provided that that certificate has not expired.”
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:62016CJ0492&from=PT

Judgement of the Court, of 20 December 2017, Case C‑334/16

Reference for a preliminary ruling — Compulsory insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles — Directive 2009/103/EC — Article 3, first paragraph — Concept of ‘use of vehicles’ — National legislation excluding the driving of motor vehicles on roads and terrain that are not ‘suitable for use by motor vehicles’, with the exception of those which, though not suitable, are nonetheless ‘ordinarily so used’

Summary:

“The first paragraph of Article 3 of Directive 2009/103/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles, and the enforcement of the obligation to insure against such liability, must be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which makes it possible to exclude from compulsory insurance cover injuries and damage that result from the driving of motor vehicles on roads or terrain that are not ‘suitable for use by motor vehicles’, with the exception of roads or terrain which, although not suitable for that purpose, are nonetheless ‘ordinarily so used’.”
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=198066&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=661005

Judgement of the Court, of 5 December 2017, Case C‑42/17

Reference for a preliminary ruling — Article 325 TFEU — Judgment of 8 September 2015, Taricco and Others (C‑105/14, EU:C:2015:555) — Criminal proceedings for infringements relating to value added tax (VAT) — National legislation laying down limitation periods liable to prevent the prosecution of infringements — Activities affecting the financial interests of the EU — Obligation to disapply any provisions of national law liable to have an adverse effect on the fulfilment of the Member States’ obligations under EU law — Principle that offences and penalties must be defined by law.

Summary:

“Article 325(1) and (2) TFEU must be interpreted as requiring the national court, in criminal proceedings for infringements relating to value added tax, to disapply national provisions on limitation, forming part of national substantive law, which prevent the application of effective and deterrent criminal penalties in a significant number of cases of serious fraud affecting the financial interests of the European Union, or which lay down shorter limitation periods for cases of serious fraud affecting those interests than for those affecting the financial interests of the Member State concerned, unless that disapplication entails a breach of the principle that offences and penalties must be defined by law because of the lack of precision of the applicable law or because of the retroactive application of legislation imposing conditions of criminal liability stricter than those in force at the time the infringement was committed.”
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=197423&pageIndex=0&doclang=en&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=661533

III.2. Constitutional Court

Judgment of the Constitutional Court no. 851/2017 of December 20, Case 507/16: Establishes that the provision in article 380 (1) (b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, is unconstitutional when interpreted in the sense of ‘the court has granted a request for rectification of an error which it has committed in the rectified judgment, unrepeatable, concerning the date on which a crime was committed, which went from post-prior to the date decisive for the integration of the respective conviction in the contest of crimes and the calculation of the corresponding single sentence, but to have refused to lend a practical consequence to the rectification, by reformulating the accumulation For breach of Articles 20 (1) and (4) and 32 (1) in conjunction with Article 18 (2) of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.
http://www.tribunalconstitucional.pt/tc/acordaos/20170851.html

Judgment of the Constitutional Court no. 848/2017 of December 13, Case 281/2017: declares the unconstitutionality, with general obligatory force, of the rules set out in Article 59 (1) and (2), Article 60 (1) and (2), the first part of Article 61, Article 63 (1) and (2) and number 1 of article 64, regarding the Municipal Tax of Civil Protection – for violation of the provisions of article 103 (2) and article 165 (1) (i). of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic.
http://www.tribunalconstitucional.pt/tc/acordaos/20170848.html

III.3. Courts of Justice

Judgment of Coimbra’s Court of Appeal of December 12 2017, Case No. 430/15.3T8MGR.C1: Bail. Excussion benefits. Special revitalization process. PER. Plan of revitalization. Default.
http://www.dgsi.pt/jtrc.nsf/8fe0e606d8f56b22802576c0005637dc/a3c8882d369457608025820a003b8178?OpenDocument

III.4. Administrative and Tax Courts
Judgment of the South Central Administrative Court of December 19, 2017, Case No. 1199/11.6BELRS: Norms Regarding Subsidiary Liability. Noun character. Subsidiaries are indirect taxable persons. The tax legal relationship. Respect for the principles of legal certainty and protection of trust in the application of subsidiary debtors. Tax liability subsidiary of statutory auditors. Art. 24 (3) of the LGT in the wording resulting from Law 60-A / 2005. DE 30/12. Arts. 6 and 55 of the Statute of the Order of Chartered Accountants. Functions and duties of TOC. Assumptions of subsidiary liability of OCD. Burden of proof.
http://www.dgsi.pt/jtca.nsf/170589492546a7fb802575c3004c6d7d/02e82bdbeb13800b802581fb005e291b?OpenDocument