Luxembourg, 16/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Court of Justice's ruling in the Kühne & Heitz case, where it decided that an administrative authority, like those in the Netherlands, may have to re-examine a decision, even if it is definitive, if the Court of Justice, in a former ruling on the decision, gives an interpretation according to Community law which is different to that based on the Dutch decision. The Court is keen to indicate that legal security figures in a number of general principles and is recognised in Community law but that the specific Dutch situation and Dutch law allows for an administrative authority the possibility to go back on a decision that has become definitive.
Between 1986-87, a poultry exporter, Kühne and Heitz, requested export discounts for poultry exports to Productschap voor Pluimvee en Eieren, which the latter after having paid the former a certain amount, asked for part of the sum to be reimbursed as Kühn had in its request interpreted tariff provisions imprecisely. Khüne & Heitz maintain that their interpretation was correct and appealed to the College van Beroep voor het bedrijfleven, which is responsible for last resort decisions and which rejected this appeal in 1991. The Productschap decision became definitive in Dutch law.
In 1994 the European Court of Justice's Voogd ruling, the Court reached a decision on another case, interpreting tariff provisions in the same way as Khüne and Heitz. The exporter used this ruling in requesting that Productschap voor Pluimvee en Eieren revise its initial decision requesting money from the exporter. Kühne & Heitz is again going to the College van Beroep voor het bedrijfleven which sent the case to the Court of Justice
The College is asking the Court if Community law necessitates are-examination, possibly a withdrawal of the national and definitive administrative decision, if it is contrary to a decision made later by the European Court of Justice.
The Court points out that specific elements are characteristic of Dutch law and the case could therefore not be extended to other Member States, namely: Dutch law recognises that administrative bodies like Productschap can overrule a definitive administrative decision by way of a ruling from the national jurisdiction making the final decision (without the possibility of appealing to a superior legal authority). Kühne is expected, as it has done, to address the administrative body as soon as it gets the Court's ruling.