Procurer du Roi v Dassonville

Belgium had a rule preventing the sale of products such as Scotch whisky without a certificate of authenticity. The trader had purchased his whisky in France, where no such measure existed, and so made his own certificate of authenticity. The trader was accused of forging the certificate and was held by the Belgian court to be in breach of the law. The trader argued that this represented a quantitative restriction on trade, which would be in breach of Article 28 EC of the Treaty of Rome. The Belgian court referred the case to the European Court of Justice, as is permitted under Article 267 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union (at the time 234 EC).

Decision

The court held that the Belgian legislation requiring the certificate of authenticity represented a measure having equivalent effect of restricting trade and in breach of article 28 of the Treaty. The restriction meant that it was perfectly possible for a French seller of Scotch whisky to sell the whisky, but a short distance away in Belgium, a trader selling the same whisky would be subject to restrictions that would effectively create a restriction on their ability to compete with the French trader.

The court stated:

"All trading rules enacted by Member States which are capable of hindering, directly or indirectly, actually or potentially, intra-Community trade are to be considered as measures having an effect equivalent to quantitative restrictions"

Horspool and Humphreys note that this decision could include a "huge" range of restrictions[2] and that the court has sought to limit the range of the Dassonville decision, in cases such as Cassis de Dijon, which was decided a few years later.