Marleasing SA v La Comercial Internacional de Alimentacion SA
Encyclopedia
Marleasing SA v La Comercial Internacional de Alimentacion SA (1990) C- 106/89 was a decision of the European Court of Justice
concerning the indirect effect
of European Union law
. It established that the courts of European Union member states have a duty to interpret national legislation in light of unimplemented European Union directives.
European Court of Justice
The Court can sit in plenary session, as a Grand Chamber of 13 judges, or in chambers of three or five judges. Plenary sitting are now very rare, and the court mostly sits in chambers of three or five judges...
concerning the indirect effect
Indirect effect
Indirect effect describes a situation where national courts are required to interpret national law in line with an unimplemented or badly implemented directive, as opposed to ignoring national law in preference to the directive as occurs when direct effect is invoked...
of European Union law
European Union law
European Union law is a body of treaties and legislation, such as Regulations and Directives, which have direct effect or indirect effect on the laws of European Union member states. The three sources of European Union law are primary law, secondary law and supplementary law...
. It established that the courts of European Union member states have a duty to interpret national legislation in light of unimplemented European Union directives.
Facts
Marleasing SA (the Applicant) brought an application before the Spanish national courts for an order that the contract establishing "La Comercial" was void and that the formation of La Comercial should be nullified on the grounds that establishment "lacked cause, was a sham transaction and was carried out in order to defraud the creditors of Barviesa (a co-founder of La Comercial)". La Comercial argued that the action should be dismissed in its entirety on the grounds that article 11 of the first directive, which had not yet been implemented by Spain, provided an exhaustive list of the cases under which the nullity of a company may be ordered and that "lack of cause" was not a ground listed therein. The Spanish court then referred the following question to the European Court of Justice:
"Is Article 11 of [the] Council Directive 68/151/EEC of 9 March 1968, which has not been implemented in national law, directly applicable so as to preclude a declaration of nullity of a public limited liability company on a ground other than those set out in the said article?"