Explanatory Note

Introduction

According to Article 36 para. 3 UPCA the court fees of the UPC shall be fixed by the Administrative Committee. The draft decision submitted in this document contains a proposal for such court fees.

The proposal has been prepared by the Legal and Finance Working Groups with the involvement of participating Member States. The attached table of fees has been presented to and discussed by the Preparatory Committee of the UPC on various occasions and was finally approved at its 14th meeting on 24 / 25 February 2016 on the basis of document PC/09/Feb2016. The outcome of these discussions has been included in the final document. The submitted draft is subject only to minor amendments explained below.

Amendments

1. Some drafting errors needed to be corrected. The references to the respective rules in the Rules of Procedures contained in square brackets have been adapted, where necessary.

2. The appeal pursuant to Rule 220.1 (a) and (b) [R 228] as to an application for provisional measures [R. 206.5] has only been moved down and regrouped together with the (other) interlocutory appeals [R. 220.1(c), 228] covering the further measures. The court fees for the respective orders for measures remain unchanged: Appeal as to an application of provisional measures (11,000 EUR, Rule 220.1(c), Art. 62 UPCA) and other orders (3,000 EUR, Rule 220.1 (c), Art. 49.5, 59, 60, 61, or 67 UPCA).

3. The appeal pursuant to Rule 220.2 [R. 228], for which leave has been granted by the Court of First Instance [R. 220.2] or which has been allowed by the Court of Appeal [R. 220.4] is missing in the table. It is proposed to set the fee at a lower level of 1,500 EUR since impact and complexity of these further orders under Rule 220.2 are in general lower than those of Rule 220.1(c) for which 3,000 EUR are foreseen.

4. For the Application for re-establishment of rights a fee had only been foreseen for the Court Appeal and has now been amended accordingly for the Court of First Instance.

5. For the appeal against cost decisions the table only foresaw a fee for the Application for leave to appeal of 1,500 EUR. Added is a fee for the actual appeal in case leave is granted of 3,000 EUR, Rule 221.4 [R. 228]. It is specified that in this case the fee of 1,500 EUR for the leave procedure does not arise.