Court of Justice of the European Communities (including Court of First Instance Decisions)

ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT

1 July 2022 (*)

(Appeal – Confidentiality – Information treated as confidential at first instance)

In Case C‑293/22 P,

APPEAL under Article 56 of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, brought on 3 May 2022,

Chemours Netherlands BV, established in Dordrecht (Netherlands), represented by R. Cana, Z. Romata and H. Widemann, avocates,

applicant,

the other parties to the proceedings being:

European Chemicals Agency (ECHA),

defendant at first instance,

Kingdom of the Netherlands,

ClientEarth AISBL, established in Brussels (Belgium),

ClientEarth, established in London (United Kingdom),

CHEM Trust Europe eV, established in Hamburg (Germany),

interveners at first instance,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT

having regard to the proposal of O. Spineanu-Matei, Judge-Rapporteur,

after hearing the Advocate General, J. Kokott,

makes the following

Order

1        By its appeal, Chemours Netherlands BV seeks to have set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 23 February 2022, Chemours Netherlands v ECHA (T‑636/19, not published, EU:T:2022:86), by which the General Court dismissed its action under Article 263 TFEU for annulment of Decision ED/71/2019 of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) of 4 July 2019, which came into force on 16 July 2019, in so far as it includes 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoro-2-(heptafluoropropoxy)propionic acid, its salts and its acyl halides (and their isomers and combinations thereof) in the list of substances identified for eventual inclusion in Annex XIV to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), establishing a European Chemicals Agency, amending Directive 1999/45/EC and repealing Council Regulation (EEC) No 793/93 and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1488/94 as well as Council Directive 76/769/EEC and Commission Directives 91/155/EEC, 93/67/EEC, 93/105/EC and 2000/21/EC (OJ 2006 L 396, p. 1, and corrigendum OJ 2007 L 136, p. 3).

2        By document lodged at the Court Registry on 3 May 2022, Chemours Netherlands has requested that the Court treat as confidential, vis-à-vis ClientEarth AISBL, ClientEarth and CHEM Trust Europe eV, interveners at first instance, and vis-à-vis the general public, Annex A.7 to its application brought before the General Court, incorporated in Annex P.3 to its appeal, as regards certain information contained in ECHA’s decision of 20 February 2019 concerning the evaluation of the substance ammonium 2,3,3,3-tetrafluoro-2-(heptafluoropropoxy)propanoate (‘Annex A.7’). To that end, Chemours Netherlands has attached to its request a non-confidential version of the annexes to the appeal, including Annex A.7.

3        As Chemours Netherlands states, the information contained in Annex A.7, for which confidential treatment is requested before the Court of Justice, corresponds to the information in respect of which confidential treatment was, in the absence of objections from ClientEarth AISBL, ClientEarth and CHEM Trust Europe, granted before the General Court, as is apparent from paragraphs 44 and 45 of the order of 15 June 2020, Chemours Netherlands v ECHA (T‑636/19, not published, EU:T:2020:276).

4        Article 171(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice provides that the appeal is to be served on the other parties to the relevant case before the General Court. Furthermore, in accordance with Article 172 of those rules, any party to the relevant case before the General Court having an interest in the appeal being allowed or dismissed may submit a response within two months after service of the appeal on that party. It follows from those provisions that the appeal and the other procedural documents lodged before the Court of Justice are also to be served, in principle, on the parties given leave to intervene before the General Court.

5        However, where a party is requesting, vis-à-vis parties who intervened before the General Court, confidential treatment in respect of material produced before the Court of Justice which has already been treated as confidential vis-à-vis those same parties in the proceedings at first instance, that same confidential treatment must, in principle, be maintained for the purposes of the proceedings before the Court of Justice (order of the President of the Court of 22 March 2022, Google and Alphabet v Commission, C‑48/22 P, not published, EU:C:2022:207, paragraph 5 and the case-law cited).

6        It follows from the foregoing that the request of Chemours Netherlands for confidential treatment vis-à-vis ClientEarth AISBL, ClientEarth and CHEM Trust Europe, interveners at first instance, in respect of the document contained in Annex A.7 to its application brought before the General Court, incorporated in Annex P.3 to its appeal, must be granted. Accordingly, only the non-confidential version of that annex to the appeal shall be disclosed by the Registrar to those interveners at first instance.

On those grounds, the Court hereby orders:

1.      The document contained in Annex A.7 to the application brought before the General Court of the European Union by Chemours Netherlands BV, which is incorporated in Annex P.3 to the appeal brought by the latter, shall be treated as confidential vis-à-vis ClientEarth AISBL, ClientEarth and CHEM Trust Europe eV, interveners at first instance, and only the non-confidential version of that annex to the appeal shall be required to be served by the Registrar on those interveners at first instance.

2.      The costs are reserved.

Luxembourg, 1 July 2022.

*      Language of the case: English.

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