Facts
Van Gend en Loos, a postal and transportation company, imported urea-formaldehyde from West Germany to the Netherlands. The Dutch customs authorities charged them a tariff on the import. Van Gend en Loos objected, submitting that the tariff was contrary to EC law. Article 12 of the Treaty of Rome (now replaced by Article 30 TFEU) stated:
"Member States shall refrain from introducing between themselves any new customs duties on imports and exports or any charges having equivalent effect, and from increasing those which they already apply in their trade with each other."Van Gend en Loos paid the tariff but then sought to retrieve the money in the national court. The national court made a request for a preliminary ruling to the European Court of Justice, asking whether the then Article 12 of the Treaty of Rome conferred rights on the nationals of a member state that they could be enforced in national courts.
Read more about this topic: Van Gend En Loos V Nederlandse Administratie Der Belastingen
Famous quotes containing the word facts:
“Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle any thing as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my back.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.”
—William James (1842–1910)